Have you been abused by British Airways?

Modern air travel is stressful enough without the abuse that some airlines inflict on passengers. If you are a legitimate victim of airline abuse and reasonable attempts at redress have been ignored or refused by the airline, I encourage you to submit a complaint via the CEDR to send a clear message to the airline that this behaviour will not be tolerated. The process is free if you are successful or £25 if you are unsuccessful. Please let me know about your success stories!

Current testimonial

Welcome to Buchenwald

"Our non-stop 11 hour flight to London's Heathrow Airport will begin shortly. So please sit back, relax, take advantage of your 29 centimeters of generous legroom and enjoy your flight. And don't think for a moment we have forgotten all that unpleasant Colonist business about Lexington Concord, the dishonorably discharged tea and your precious declaration of independence."

So began my 2012 European Vacation back on Dec.22, which literally seems like a lifetime ago.Or at least one lung ago.

Allow me to explain.

Before embarking on our family jaunt across Western Europe I had suffered a bout of bronchitis. As these yearly bouts go, it wasn't all that severe. And in fact it had all but cleared. That is until I boarded a 747 and was directed towards Seat 23D, in what British Airways calls their Economy Triumphe Classe. Or some bullshit marketing-driven name, because the more appropriate monikers like Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Dauchau had already been taken.

When I saw the "seat" I literally thought I was being filmed for some Punked reality TV show.

How bad was it?

Next time you're at the supermarket, stop by the breakfast food section. Remove a Jumbo Grade AA egg from one of the cartons crafted from recycled cardboard. Now imagine trying to jam an Ostrich egg into the severely undersized vacated container.

Those, were the first class seats.

On the plus side, every seat was thoughtfully furnished with its own personal entertainment center. Sadly however, the 5 inch screen was jammed so close to my face, all the images were blurred. It was an hour and a half into some lame romcom before I realized Jennifer Lopez was actually Mathew Perry. (By the way, Mathew Perry and the notion of inflight entertainment do not belong in the same sentence.)

Do you feel like you've walked through three gates of Hell?

There's six more to go.

I like babies. I like smiling at babies. I like making faces at babies. I like making babies laugh.I did not however like the baby seated in 24F. He had a unibrow. He cried like a wounded duck. And he looked like he had been constipated for all of his 14 months on this earth.

I would have gladly left that wanker, in his squirrel pajamas, sitting on the tarmac on runway 24Right.

Finally, there was Dirty Geppetto, the man seated next to me and my personal docent into Dante's Inferno. I'm not sure his name was Geppetto, but he bore an uncanny resemblance to the puppeteer who, you might remember, hand crafted Pinochio.

Try not to pay too much attention to the cheerful craftsman in this picture. Dirty Gepetto was less pleasing to the eye. And considerably less pleasing to the nose. In fact, we, my entire family, could smell D.G. from 10 rows away.

It was as if prior to boarding the plane, and knowing he would not catch a whiff of nicotine until he had transversed half the globe, he had smoked an entire carton of Marlboro Reds. Then, in an unusual act of common courtesy to his fellow passengers (me), he stopped in at the duty free shop and picked up the Costco sized jug of Drakkar Noir, you know, to kindly mask the odor.

To make matters worse, he was cloaked head to toe in heavy denim, the kind of denim that retains every fume it has ever come in contact with, dating back to 1975.

All of which began to trigger my dormant bronchitis.

A tickle over the Rockies had escalated to a hack as we crossed over the Canadian border. By the time we had reached Greenland, I was coughing non-stop. Iceland saw the first smattering of blood. And by the time we were over Dublin, I was bringing up tissue matter that was as thick as peat bog.

Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3.(Terminal is the right word as I surely felt I were going to to die.)

My bag is literally the last to come off the conveyor belt. I rip it open, tear through my suitcase and make a mad grab for my toiletry bag. There, I find my purple relief, a half a bottle of Promethazine Cough Syrup fortified with hydrocodeine.

The proper dosage for Promethazine is one tablespoon every six hours. I didn't have a tablespoon. Nor did I want one. I wasted no time with the childproof cap and quickly chugged 1/4 of the bottle. As the fast acting opiates started to take effect, I gathered my clean clothes off the baggage claim floor and noticed Dirty Gepetto high stepping his malodorous body to the nearest designated smoking area.

Other testimonials

No coffee, tea or water without a charge, now Lost and Found yet another insult

I am an Executive Platinum (Emerald) frequent flyer. I used to be the highest level of BA, with once over 2M miles.

I go out of my way to no longer fly BA because of the deteriorating service.

I also speak to many BA employees, and they all hate their job.

All in all, a fraction of what they used to be.

Anyway, I left my laptop on a flight from Munich to London. I realized it immediately. I was not allowed to retrieve it. So I went to lost and found. They were closed (at 7:30 PM). I could not speak to anyone who could help. I approached several BA employees at Terminal 5, and even asked for a manger. No one had any suggestions, other than "too bad". I went online and found that BA has outsourced Lost and Found.

Two days later, I was able to retrieve my laptop by actually traveling to the airport. I could not speak with anyone. Here is the best part. They charged me 20 POUNDS!!!!! to get my own laptop back.

I tell everyone I know who travels to avoid BA. The lounges are run down (even the Concord which I was in recently), and Avios is a joke.

Ron Rock

Terminal 5 Heathrow

Missing Baggage because I was given a faulty tag by BA

My baggage is missing because I was given the wrong baggage tag by one of the BA staff at the check in, which makes the tracing of my baggage so difficult.

Even worse is their customer service, I have been phoning them in overseas phone rates. Last week, one of the staff who answered this number said a match was found and I was told to call back again in 24 hours to double check. I called in and was told the checking has been taking place and I need to call in again. I called today at 8:53 and was told the match was not correct and he said "BA did everything we can". He hung up on me when I was questioning how is it possible that "BA did everything BA can" when it was BA staff who gave me the wrong tag and I have been the one who have to call back several times when BA was not doing the job I was promised... The whole experience is NOT acceptable.

I called BA today and they told me they consider the bag is lost and they will not keep looking for it!!! BA sucks!!! I will never take their flight and I will strongly advise my relatives, friends and people who see the webpage not to as well!!!

Ying Zou

London

Ruined our trip to New York - A truly shocking attitude and dismissive attitude to customers

BA were once a pleasure to fly with, now I find it despicable, not only their contempt for customers, but also from what I read how they pay cabin staff.

My latest experience was a dreadful flight to New York on 4th December, whereby having paid lots of extra money for specific seats with more leg room, it transpired the flying cattle truck they loaded me onto had a different seating configuration to that shown on the BA.com flight reservation platform. The cabin crew told me this was a common occurance and they constantly have upset customers with the same issue. Haviing complained, BA "customer service" of course sent a standard response which had no relevance whatsoever.

On the flight back they did the same and even moved us on to two seperate rows.

At JFK there was chaos with BA flights cancelled becuase of snow at Heathrow. Now this might be excusable, but those customers delayed or cancelled, were just left in the check in queues, meaning people on later flights which were not cancelled could not check in and queues not going anywhere! There were no BA staff available, no anouncements - Nothing! Only some initiative by myself and 3 fellow passengers persuaded some airport staff to open another desk and pull passengers for our scheduled flight out of the stagnant queue and got us checked in. We just made the flight, but no thanks to BA.

How did an airline go from being great to shocking in such a short time. Perhaps the recently appointed CEO would benefit from attending the Harvard course on "Service Profit Chain" principles, to gain some insight on why poor customer service jepordises company profits and indeed the whole company in the longer term.

I am placing this issue in escalation and raising it with Visa. It is now a point of principle and must say I like this site and wish you all success in getting customer justice in your dispute.

in my view as a seasoned traveller, the problem is not with employees who do their best, but with executive leadership team who seem out of touch with customer reality.

Neil Cox

Bedfordshire

Even as an Airline Pilot, I couldn't believe how bad BA were

I, from an inside view point, understand that problems happen within the airline Industry. But it is how you resolve them that counts.

On a recent weekend break to Frankfurt booked on BA, I was shocked how shabby the planes were. BA cancelled our return journey and we were unable to get through on the phone and their website crashed. Which left us to book additional accommodation etc. etc.

Finally managed to accept a return flight the following day on my phone App. BA lost our luggage, still haven't found it a week later - but the Indian call centre (when you can get through) were very helpful in telling us three different versions of where our luggage was and when we would get it - today they admitted they just don't know.

I witnessed my bag getting damaged

Last week on a flight from Amsterdam to London, my cabin bag was put in the hold as the overhead lockers were full.

On landing in London, as the aircraft was waiting for the aerobridge, I watched with curiosity and trepidation (Murphy's Law!) from my window seat, my cabin bag being taken out of the hold and being left on the tarmac by a handler. I was appalled to then see a careless baggage/food trolley carrier vehicle actually reversing in the direction of my cabin bag... watched with complete helplessness this vehicle run over my cabin bag and dragging it for a few feet before the handler alerted the driver and they pulled my bag from under the vehicle.

As expected when i collected the bag, it was crushed (soft luggage), and had got holes and was torn. We filed a damaged bag complaint but the response from British Airways staff reeks of arrogance. The response, the tone, the reasoning is nothing but scandalous. (They are offering us a generous 25 pounds compensation because we flew economy!) I am thanking my stars that on this trip I did not have my camera or laptops/tablets etc in the cabin bag. My husband is filing a case in small claims court.

Mrs Venkatesh has emailed through the following update:

Your site information was really useful. Following what I read in your website my husband lodged a claim in small claims court here in London by paying £25 fees. We had claimed £60 for the bags that BA damaged. BA said they would contest the claim in court. But finally their lawyers called us and offered us full compensation (which was more than our initial claim). If only BA's outsourced baggage handling thug company K Global and BA's own customer service were not so nasty, they would have saved themselves a good amount of money. I am very pleased with your website. more power to you and small claims court. Kind regards, Mrs Venkatesh

Mrs Venkatesh

UK Bracknell

BA has worst customer service ever

I traveled from Hong Kong to LHR on BA in bsuiness class. During the flight my suitcase was damaged. I filed the complaint upon arrival at LHR.

It's been over a month and i finally got contacted by BA, after having hounded them for weeks. I have now been told that a like for like replacement of my previously awesome, but now broken Burton bag was not an option. Instead, I will be issued a replacement bag by Rynns luggage - who also BTW suck... havent heard from them either.

So much for customer service. i am a One World Emerald Member which seems to mean nothing to them - and truthfully shouldn't impact their customer service - but does with other airlines.

i traveled in a premium cabin, but again this seems to matter very little.

I have now decided to boycott BA and no longer fly with them, and will go as far as avoiding them on code share flights. i have been "BA'd" one too many times

Andreas

Hong Kong / UK / USA

Luggage found, but BA customer service was lost

My friend Doug and I flew from Orlando to London, via Miami. We arrived in London to find that our golf clubs and suitcases had not made the trip with us. The Customer Service agent at Heathrow told us that the bags were in Miami. She gave us a claim form to fill out and told us that the bags would be delivered to our hotel. This was a bit of a problem, in that we were on a traveling golf vacation and the first four nights we were booked in separate accommodations, in different locations.

We trusted that the luggage would arrive the next morning and that it would be delivered to our hotel in Sandwich, Kent, where we were playing golf at Royal St. Georges and Princes golf clubs. However, when we called BA customer service the next morning, they could not verify that our bags had made it onto a flight that day.

We went on to play golf at Royal St. Georges and after the round we received a text message from the contractor that BA uses to deliver delayed or lost luggage. The text message stated that they had our bags and would schedule delivery. The problem we had was that we were to go from Sandwich to Coventry that afternoon, and then on to play golf at Royal Birkdale the next morning, staying at Lytham the next night. So we tried contacting the delivery agent, but couldn't get through to them. We called BA again, but the CS agent couldn't even determine whether our bags were in the country. Eventually, we talked them into giving us the phone number that they used to contact the delivery agent. We called this number at about 18:20, and found that they did indeed have our bags, but they wouldn't be delivered until the next evening. We asked if we could pick them up at their warehouse, which was acceptable, and they were open until 21:00. We jumped in our rental car and drove like maniacs to their office near Heathrow, arriving at about 20:59, and they had our bags set out for us.

On the good side, I would say that BA did reimburse many of our expenses for things like golf club rental, purchase of rain suits, clothing, golf gloves, golf balls and other associated materials. They refused to pay for the loss of our prepaid green fees for the first day of golf at the Princes Golf Club.

Jeff Elledge

North Florida

Held Hostage in the UK

My wife and I flew BA from Orlando, Florida to Edinburgh. Our tickets required us to bus from Gatwick to Heathrow for the connection. This was a problem for my wife, as her knees were giving her fits. So we explained to the ticket agent in Orlando that we wanted to change to a connecting flight out of Gatwick, which we booked and paid for.

Unfortunately, the agent failed to cancel us out of the Heathrow to Edinburgh flight, so when we didn't show, BA cancelled our return tickets to the US. On top of this, they didn't bother to provide us with any notice of this cancellation. So the first we found out that our tickets were cancelled was the day before the return, when we attempted to check in for the flight. Even then we didn't get a straightforward message on the web site, but just a note that we had already taken the flight. So we called BA customer service. The first CS agent told us that our flight was being cancelled because of weather, but he would get us on a flight in two or three days. We told him that we knew the flight wasn't being cancelled because of weather, and that we couldn't wait several days to get home. He told us to just go to the airport and let the gate agents sort it out.

Since we had already been lied to, we decided not to trust his advice, so I drove to Edinburgh to talk to a CS rep in person. This person eventually figured out that our tickets had been cancelled. She advised that we would need to purchase new tickets for the flight the next day at a cost of about US$3500, roughly twice the cost of our original round trip tickets. When I asked if there was a supervisor that we could speak with, she told me that there was a supervisor on duty, but that he wouldn't want to talk with me.

On checking the Conditions of Carriage, there is a specific provision that states that BA will not cancel subsequent flights if you cancel a leg prior to the check in time for the flight. So after buying tickets on another airline to get home, I again contacted BA Customer Service. They told me that they had checked with their legal staff and that since I had not cancelled 24 hours in advance, they could not reimburse me for the other tickets we had purchased. I once again reviewed the Conditions of Carriage, which clearly states that BA will not cancel subsequent legs of a flight if cancellation occurs prior to check in. There is a separate provision regarding refunds, which was not relevant. They then offered to refund the taxes and fees from the original tickets, but not reimburse us for the second tickets that we were forced to purchase. I explained to them that under the contract (conditions of carriage) even a refund of taxes would only be made if there was a cancellation prior to check in. But by that point the CS rep was speechless and powerless to correct this mess.

I am still trying to decide whether I will sue BA for breach of contract. Under Florida law, I would need to file the lawsuit in south Florida, where their corporate business address is registered. This is about 200 miles from my home, so even a claim in small claims court would require me to make several 8 hour round trip drives. What else can you do when a corporation like BA screws you?

Hi Jeff, you can probably submit a claim via the CEDR. If you paid by credit card, another option might be to have your bank reverse the transaction which is reasonable when you have paid for a service you did not receive.

Jeff Elledge

North Florida

**** British Airways

Tried prebooking seat for my wife going back to Thailand. Web site wouldn't let me. Phoned BA. Indian lady less than helpful. Despite me paying for a Premium Economy seat she would only speak to my wife. She speaks less English than the rep. It was impossible.
Got to Heathrow and told she was bumped down to economy. BA said she would get a refund voucher at the gate. This would be a voucher against future flights!!'
Do they honestly believe I will use BA again?
I purchased this ticket about 5 months ago. I bet the people with her seat only got their ticket recently.
BA ARE THIEVING BASTARDS

Glenn Michael Perry

Chichester

We must Unite against this monster company

Having gone through the experience of trying to use my AVIOs miles, and then having gone through the internet and found the number of people disgusted with British Airways, I think we need to have a more organized approach to blackballing this airline.

Although these internet sites (British Airways sucks, We hate BA etc) are great for venting, perhaps what we need is for crowdsourcing (1 Euro or pound per disgusted ex customer) and then using the money to buy advertisements in major newspapers to let the public know about this sham of an airline.

Are other people interested in advancing this action?

George Christakis

Toronto Canada

BA Loves Delaying Flights!

I've flown BA for many years but this year that has changed. Along with Flybe, they are the worst airline I've ever used.

This year started with a family holiday to Tampa, from Jersey (via Gatwick). Our flight from Jersey to Gatwick was scheduled to be on-time, however the bag drop staff reluctantly told us that the flight would be an hour late, however this information was not put on the boards.

We boarded very early, but were forced to stay seated until we had our landing slot at Gatwick. Why couldn't we takeoff and just hold over Gatwick? That would have been better than being sat there worrying about whether we would make our connection.

The flight landed at 9am, about an hour late, which gave us two hours for our connecting flight to Tampa. 10am, 11am went past, and the boards still said "Boarding [time]," until it got to that time, when it said "Next info 11:50." I've had 'next info' delayed and know they're never good. Once it got to 11:50, the boards were now saying "Next info 12:50", then "Next info 13:50."

At that point, we were unhappy about the lack of communication so went down to the BA customer service desk to ask what was up. We were greeted by a very angry croud who were on our flight. The lady at the desk told us that flight was delayed due to aircraft technical problems, and we would be scheduled to takeoff at 3pm, over 4 hours late. BA never put this information on the boards. They knew there would be no 'next info.'

We were also confused as to why several other Boeing 777-200s (the aircraft we were on) were taking off. Surely it would be logical to put us on an aircraft which is available and do that for all the other flights, until it gets to the last one which could use the aircraft we would be on. It felt like BA didn't care about us. This process repeated, and eventually we took off at just after 5pm, 5 hours behind schedule.

Both of the Boeing 777s we were on during the trip were in a horrible state. The seats and floor were dirty and the aircraft walls were very discoloured. The IFE is not worth using with the window blind open as the screen is so bad you can't use it. The content was poor, the food was fairly poor, staff service was ok, but overall it was an awful experience.

Later that year I was booked on a BA flight to Malaga, which was the exact same experience. It was late and uncomfortable. The flight attendants had run out of such basic things like water and cola whilst serving the first 10 rows of the aircraft. How on earth can you run out of bottled water? Overall, BA are absolutly dreadful and not worth using. Choose another airline.

TR

Jersey, Channel Islands

Fly ABBA (Anything But British Airways)

Flight BA 869 (July 26-27, 2017) was delayed overnight in Budapest. BA did nothing to help with hotel reservations (which were difficult enough for a local person because the World Swimming Championships were taking place, but virtually impossible for a non-local). No food vouchers were arranged, nor any support offered.

Contrast this with the service which Air Berlin gave to its passengers who were also stranded that night. These German passengers told me that their airline had taken care of hotel reservations, transport to and from the hotel, and food, while BA's Hungarian agent just gave us a single sheet of paper at around 22.00hrs setting out what incurred disruption expenses we would be entitled to claim back, and telling us to report back the next day to the airport for a flight (BA 867) at 13.15hrs, which happened to be already fully booked. Surely, BA had a duty of care to its passengers, some of whom were visibly distressed, but instead we were simply abandoned at the airport late at night in a city where the chances of finding accommodation that night would be low.

Flight BA 869 was reclassified from cancelled to delayed overnight, and by the time we finally landed at Heathrow at 19.10hrs the next day, over 22 hours late, all I had been offered since arriving at Budapest airport 25 hours earlier, was a glass of water on the plane, and it had not even been possible to buy food on the plane. I had been extremely lucky to find a hotel, but this was due to my own connections rather than any help from BA’s agents.

Until I boarded the plane 22 hours after our scheduled boarding time, I had not had a single sighting of a BA employee, because BA had outsourced its representation in Budapest to a ground service agent, which represents many airlines, and which did not appear to be authorised to take any decisions with respect to passenger well-being. Even the customer service telephone line, which I called overnight because I couldn't confirm which flight I had actually been rebooked on, was answered from an outsourced service in India. Outsourcing so many aspects of customer service may save costs, but it is a dangerous strategy when customer service is supposed to be one BA’s core selling points, and it certainly did not work for me.

Once the flight had taken off, the BA cabin staff (who were charming and upbeat) promised that a BA management representative would meet us at our Heathrow arrival gate with food vouchers, but, true to form, no one showed up. During the whole of the 24-hour ordeal, I did not see a single BA representative before finally boarding the flight. I have flown several times a month for the past 30 years (I am an international lecturer on strategy and valuation), and, although you may call me lucky, I have never been exposed to such a lack of support and service (and that includes many flights on so-called 3rd world airlines).

I have no problem with an airline messing up; we all mess up from time to time. However, it is what you do next that is important, and BA simply abandoned us late at night in Budapest with absolutely no support for nearly 24 hours before it managed to get us on to another plane.

If the recent stories of people being denied compensation by BA are true, I presume that I shall struggle to get any compensation for incurred expenses or delays, but that is not the point, and I have already as good as written off any hope of proper restitution to experience. However, BA could have turned the delay into an opportunity to impress future customers with some helpful action, and they failed to do so. This failure comes from the top.

BA's treatment of its passengers in this instance was nothing short of deplorable, and I shall be flying ABBA from now on.

Good bye old friend

Dear BA,

I am sitting on a flight from Tel Aviv to London.

It is half way through the journey and in my many many years of flying BA I had the worst meal experience I have ever had. In my silent debate with myself I was wondering if I should stay silent or use my limited time telling you about my struggle. I decided the latter hence my letter.

Pardon me for being facetious for just a moment but I would like to 'congratulate' BA for conforming. You used to set the bar and show others the standard, but now have sadly gone the way everyone is going.

Truthfully, I would not feed my dog with the food I had on this plane today. BA had always had great food in economy.

Those days are gone. The bread was old, the pasta not edible and the dessert hardly seeable. Our well defined 'one Drink' policy now which helped us numb the pain before, now actually has perhaps opened my eyes a bit wider to the seriousness of the situation.

Do I have sower grapes not flying First Class, hardly. Once you have been on Mission stations in Africa you can hardly be a picky eater even if you tried.

I don't fit your profile, I get it. You want the high fliers only and the boys with the big bucks and actually wish our time wasting economy fliers would fly off the planet while you graciously tolerate us and whilest scheming to buy planes that only 'serve' business customers.

We now get 60% less air miles on an Economy flight and you need to fly around the globe about 40 times before getting any benefits whatsoever.

God forbid one of the creme de la creme of BA are to fly 'World Traveller' for one day. Then things would change I am sure.

All I know is that the BA we have been supporting and flying is gone.

We had great friendships, great laughs and BA has been the best Airline worldwide hands down. We have proudly promoted BA wherever we go. I have even wiped your restroom floors and toilet seats when dirty out of embarrassment for 'our' faithful British Airline.

Goodbye old friend....

Peter

London

Never dealing with BA again

Booked an international flight through American Airlines and for 3 legs of the round-trip journey they put me on British Airways. Didn't realize how much I would hate this.

British Airways charges you $15 (at least) per flight per person to pick your seats ahead of time

They wouldn't let me check in online (I just kept getting an error message that said "proceed to the airport")

Customer service was of no help. Not even an effort for help, simply just stone-walled me at every turn. Not to mention that it sounds like all of their customer support is India and English is not their first language (was very hard for me to understand and communicate with them)

I was told I could choose seats for free when I checked in online, but (see above) was unable to check in online (again, customer service was of NO help)

Derek

Seattle

FU BA

I'll never fly BA again. They charged me $800 when I had to cancel one leg of my flight due to a change. And they routed me to an Indian call center where they clearly do not speak intelligible English!

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Malaga

When do you ever hear the good news?

I flew BA and I must say I received top service as I should expect from such a high quality business.

When was the last time you received good service and actually wrote up about it?

The cabin crew were amazing. I got exactly what I asked for! The whole journey from start to finish I couldn't fault!

Travelling in Club, I was spoken to by my first name - So friendly! It was like they actually knew and cared for me!

I will continue to fly with BA, Human errors occur people. Not every business or employee is perfect!

Don't let one bad experience put you off.

They really put the cherry on the holiday for me- PERFECT!

Jordan Cooper

Mansfield

They add charges if your address is not in the UK

I booked two business class return tickets from Costa Rica where we live to London Gatwick via a call to the UK and using a UK credit card for a sterling transaction. They added 120 pounds foreign transaction fee and refused to change it. We will use honest airlines in future.

Ivy Penman

Grecia Costa Rica

They used to be my favourite but not any more

Yesterday my wife returned from Korea but it's a miracle she even got on the flight. I received an email the day before her flight asking me to contact BA "URGENTLY" normally if something is urgent you call! Anyway it was a Saturday, I just happened to check email and so I called BA, I got cut off twice but eventually I managed to get through to someone who told me that my wife's ticket had not been issued! I was astonished she was departing in less that 12 hours in her time zone. I asked why it hadn't been issued and was told my credit card didn't work. I gave a new card and the ticket was issued. But here's the thing I called Barclaycard and they told me there was nothing wrong with the card and BA had NEVER tried to put any transaction against the card - so why lie to me? That is just very very very poor customer service - BA you've lost my trust!

Tim Taylor

London UK

Shame on BA treating anyone like this never mind Gold Guest List

Such a shame to see the ongoing demise of this once known as 'worlds favourite airline'. I won't spend unnecessary time explaining in minute detail what's happened but instead focus in key facts.

3. Check online account next day and can see new flight details so feel happy and assume BA changed flight for me hence why no one called me back.

4. 2 days later I try to check in but can't. Call BA only to be told that need to pay £2,000 for increased fare. Explain to them, wait over 1 hour no help.

5. Next day before travel explain again. No help.

6.Have to return home so pay the £2k and travel home but only after log complaint to BA customer service. Who promise to call me back in next day or so.

7. Customer service call me back 3 days later to advise they are looking into it and need to trace the call I made in step 2 and they will call me back before end of the week.

8. End of week arrives no one from BA has called.

9. I call BA - wait 15mins on dedicated GGL line - to be told someone will call me back.

10. BA Call me back and advise they found the call can clearly hear what happened. They can't explain why no one called me back and can neither tell me what I could have done differently, I explain that I've ended up spending more because of their systems not working (this includes human system). Told 'sorry' but that's the end and I can't escalate any further...

So, Dear BA above is a great example of how to lose a loyal, 20 Bus class flights pa, head of a business that spends approx $1mn pa with you. Travelling BA, Virgin, Emirates, Singapore is largely same - has become commodity. Customer service is the only differentiator.

Oh, the good news. Above is great content for a case study that we can use with OUR clients across 5 continents - thank you BA, you're a real class act!

Mr K

UK

Never fly BA to Pheonix

Flew BA to Pheonix return exec class, the staff and plane were as bad as each other, dirty, audio visual not working and totally useless and unhelpful cabin crew.

I will never fly BA again possible the worse customer service and quality of care and cleanliness ever seen seen.

No wonder people BA stands for budget airline even though budget airlines are much better.

BA you stink and should try another business useless as your staff are.

Simon Humphrey

London

BA's sarnies saga

British Airways and the sarnies saga:

Thanks Brian, this is an interesting read on the current status of BA. I had no idea easyJet and Ryanair both now carry more passengers than British Airways. It sounds to me like BA staff are as unhappy as BA passengers and this is surely a recipe for disaster.

Brian Lait

Europe

Antique BA plane for 11 hour flight?!

I flew from London to Bangkok for 11 hours in economy. Torture! The plane they used was obviously very old - my mobile has a screen about the same size as their tv screen. No outlets to charge our devices. No legroom whatsoever - serious leg cramps.

Poor service. We only got a dinner and a snack for an 11 hour flight. Unfriendly flight attendants.

I am dreading going home with BA - 13 hours this time! We will NEVER use BA again. Only Emirates.

Annie F

Scotland

Unexpected class downgrading

I booked Business seats for my wife and me on British Airways via the Destinia travel agent from Cairo to London Heathrow and return from London to Cairo (BA154 & BA155). I booked the flights online two months before the traveling date. I have received an email from BA to confirm my booking as business class, and full payment made successfully.

On the return journey in Heathrow Terminal 5 at the checking in desk they astonished me by telling me that my class will be a downgrade from business to the economy they didn't say why. After more than 2 hours arguing with BA’s staff in a very stressful environment full of frustration, they allowed me to meet with the customer service manager at the lounge of Terminal 5.

The BA customer manager told me that British Airways usually oversells the seats of business class.

The BA customer manager in Terminal 5 lounge has promised me to refund the fares difference within one day plus 300 GBP compensation if I accepted to move to economy class on the same day of traveling day.

My wife and I became so frustrated, exhausted and stressed due to this argument lasted for 2 hours. Therefore I had no choice to accept the offer of BA customer service manager. She gave me 300 GBP compensation.

However till now British airways did not refund the fares difference, this is completely unfair since business seats cost more than $2000 each.

EMAD AWAD

Cairo

Terrible customer service

Terrible. I have been trying to have a flight cancelled since November. The booking allowed cancellation and refund of avios and cash used. I have called numerous times to be told by an automated system I would call back as they're busy. On the four occasions I've made it through to a human I have been told the matter is in hand and should be completed in the next couple of days. Nothing happens, nobody follows the matter up and I must call again. Separately I complained to customer relations whose advise was they don't have access to the systems to deal with my issue and I should call, you guessed it, the same number I have been calling for a month. I said this wasn't good enough and they responded again that there is nothing they can do.

Really abysmal. I have a lot of avios and 12k gbp worth of flights booked with them for 2017. When both are gone, that's them gone from my first choice of carriers. Of course they won't care and that's exactly the nub of the problem. They don't.

John

London

so shocked at the attitude of two customer relations managers

A terrible airline that treats customers like units, takes greed and rudeness to another level, and their so called customer relations managers are an utter disgrace, to think they are Britains flagship carrier is a very sad indictment as to how this nations world wide reputation for fairness, understanding and empathy with others must be seen first hand, and when i turned to the big sign at terminal five that says A WARM WELCOME FROM BRITISH AIRWAYS and said to the two unbelievably rude customer relations reps, that sign makes me ashamed to be British after the way you have treated me, the response i got from them was WE DONT CARE!! Thats the gods honest truth, says it all really.

simon holmes

heathrow terminal 5

CABIN CREW MEMBER CALLS ME A LIAR AND TRIES TO START A FIGHT

You will not believe this!! i have been flying for 20 years and today on BA56 leaving 20:20 from JNB to LHR I have had the worst ever known treatment from WILL- tall, white, Manchester accent, early 30s cabin member who got in my face as I was trying to sleep.

First of all saying I was illegally charging devices while sleeping- WRONG- then calling me a LIAR and saying loudly why are you LYING- this escalated. Now having been in the Royal Marines for a long time- if my family was not there the plane would have had to land due to this incompetent, unprofessional, unqualified and self loving person. As i said- excuse me who are you talking to??? he walked off- then as i went to ask him what was the problem he began to wave his hands in my face and raise his voice again slating my character.

I then asked to speak to the cabin manger- who happened to be having his nap- ah bless- two hours later he justified the behaviour and there was no apology.

Pierre De Villiers

JNB-LHR

APAC Booking System not working

I tried to change my return flight from Australia to UK but was told their systems were down so they couldn't change it, tried for 2 days and had no joy eventually got through to London Cust Services and the price had gone up by 4x. On my return BA claim they have no record of their Booking Systems not working!!!! Inferred I was not telling the truth, and no they won't discuss it further. I've been a Gold Exec member for 5 years. Must be the worst Cust Service dept I have ever dealt with. Anyone else had similar problems in APAC?

G Philips

London, UK

Unbelievably poor customer service

I have never encountered such atrocious customer service. The Civil Avation Authority could not help me, because they have no legal power themselves over BA. So, take your claim to the County Court (a small fee), or contact CEDR. BA are currently signed up to accept the CEDR adjudication. My complaint was upheld --after 14 months-- and nine days later I got a letter from BA saying they refused my refund. They don't even know I won, and they now have a limited time to pay me!

Derek B Scott

Leeds

Not looking for a Return Customer

Just a rip off to say the least, a family member called direct for a flight between Vancouver to Rome to British Airways, (her friend booked early and got it for 650 return) and got quoted a high $1990 fare, and due to the agent saying it was booking up, she booked it. I thought that was a bit high, and checked British Airways site, expedia, and various other sites, and the same flight (exactly) was $1100.00, 36 hours later. Of course Bristish Airways would not make a adjustment on the price- claim it was not agent mistake, and one has to wonder about them, shameful indeed. Not a way to retain future customers, I know I will never book with them.

Larue

Canada

Lost Luggage debacle

My wife and I honeymooned to Spain from the US and flew BA on the leg home to NYC through Heathrow. Probably one of the worst mistakes we've ever made. Both our bags have been lost. Customer service has given us different information every time we call. They give us flight numbers and times of baggage arrival only to have this information completely change in a matter of hours. Every customer service rep has given us different information. We have no idea when or IF we will see our bags again. Its too bad our honeymoon ended in such a crap shoot, but we've learned our lesson - don't ever fly BA. The excuse we got at the airport for missing luggage was that the computer system at Heathrow went down. Are you kidding me??? Is this 1995??? What kind of antiquated computer system does BA use? Or is this just an excuse for morons who handle the baggage.

Jay

Heathrow / JFK

No Baggage

My story is so long in only 3 1/2 days I can't give all the details. Short story is flew from Glasgow to London/Heathrow on BA 9:15 AM 9 July 2016. They left every single bag for passengers terminating in London in Glasgow, every single one! We had two bags. It is now, 12 July 2016, 16:00 London time and I received only 1 bag in the US 9 hours ago. They have no idea where my second bag is (even though they are on the same claim) and they closed the claim!

I have spoken to them close to a dozen times and their customer service is the absolute worst I have ever experienced, not just in airlines, but any industry. They have cut of my call once, and twice while talking to a rep, put me in a loop where you get a male voice repeating 2 words you can't understand every 5-10 seconds. I believe they do this purposefully when they get passengers that are too upset for them to handle and they don't want to deal with you.

Anyway, I highly recommend that people avoid flying BA if at all possible. Still waiting for the whereabouts of my bag and an hour ago the customer service rep told me to "be patient, don't get irritated and give us another 24 hours."

Words cannot describe how inept they are. DO NOT FLY BA.

tom diangelis

Now USA via Heathrow

Lost Luggage

BA lost my luggage. Found it a few days later after I was constantly on the phone demanding them to call the baggage handling department. Once they had found it, they wouldn't get it on the next available flight. I am still waiting! Customer service has been awful, I will never book with this company again and encourage other schools not to either.

Lily

warwickshire

Does BA stand for Budget Airline?????

Just booked flights with BA - first of all website journey was shocking (actually Easy Jets is much much better) and it kept booting me out half way through and it took 5 attempts to book long haul from Glasgow to Vegas. When it finally let me book lots of hidden costs only presented at the after purchase that are not made explicit before booking - £37 each person each way to reserve seat and £120 if we want to put luggage in the hold!!! What's happened to you British Airways...you've changed! Not a good customer experience at all

Khogg

Glasgow

Stay Away if Disabled

Worst airline customer service ever. The call center is challenged in
using English and will cancel your ticket if you have mobility issues.
Worst airline I have dealt with for disability related concerns. They
have a rule that only allows you to call three times, and they hang up
on your the first two. The resolution offered for their errors, you can
buy more tickets from them. Worst ever! Stay away if you have any ADA
issues, they do not want you on their planes.

Kathie

USA

Inconsistent--but crazy in every possible way

BA sells "airport upgrades" from one class of service to next, I discovered. They're not cheap, but to avoid the back of the plane ...

Go to Biz lounge. Can't do it. You've done it too many times this year. (The mind simply boggles at that idea.)

Go downstairs to "customer service". Can't do it. Full

Go to First lounge: No problem, but an even huger sum £649 to TLV, while it's $599 from TLV to LHR.

$600 for a five-hour flight is quite enough thank you. $1000+, they can forget it.

But what were the first two up to?

Idiots.

Stephen

LHR

flight cancelled by BA and no refund forthcoming 5 months on

BA cancelled our flight due to fog in November and offered us one 3 days later or a refund. We had to be back at work so had to buy new tickets through another airline. There were many flights that day but BA couldn't oblige.

Asked for refund on return by emailing the address on website. After no replies to repeated emails I called. Apparently they no longer use that email address but haven't taken it down! As the emails were not pinging back as undelivered I assumed they were reading them!

So we start again on their website customer services system. Was told refunds have been made to our cards but they have not! Was told to write to refunds dept with all the documentation which we did on 12th April. Sent letter signed for. Royal mail tracking says it has not been signed for yet! This is disgusting behaviour.

Small claims here we come! But we will claim for the cancelled flight and the cost of new flights now since we have been so rudely treated.

Fran

Norwich

British Airways Experience - Mission Survive

Travel on 28/03/16 from Heathrow to Frankfurt

Summary:

BA have just screwed up big time, totally ruining our holiday. Unbelievable as it may sound, our experience was as follows:

Cancel our first flight and push us to next day

Block us on their website from rebooking a suitable flight, forcing a 03:00 am start

Send us to the wrong gate and fail to give early notice of the mistake

Fail to have necessary staff at the plane to achieve a scheduled departure

Make a huge debacle of transferring passengers to the replacement aircraft

Fail to put our luggage onto the aircraft, and have a record of the second bag

BA staff knowingly send us without our luggage and conceal this from us

Provide inadequate customer service at Frankfurt

Fail to be pro-active in supporting us in a situation of their making.

Being retired, we had saved up for the holiday and special four day treat of a luxury room in the Frankfurt Hilton. While it is accepted there was some bad weather on the scheduled departure date (28/03/16). Many flights to Frankfurt went to schedule, BA could have done more to get its customers to their destination on the day. The abysmal performance of BA in handling our travel completely ruined our holiday. The stress of the cancellation and delays were bad enough, as seniors to be left at Frankfurt with no luggage or proper customer assistance was enough to give my wife and I, a heart attack. Added to this was my worry at the consequences BA losing my important medication.

We were not alone with these problems arriving at Frankfurt. Significant anger was shown by the majority of passengers who struggled to comprehend what was happening to them. The reputation of BA and how they treat customers was extremely low.

From the disaster you have made of our holiday, we will never entrust our travel arrangements to you again

Incident log:

28/03/16

1.1 Travelling to the airport we receive a text message at 09:24 to say flight BA0908 is cancelled. The text informs us we have been provisionally booked on BA0902 the following day (29/03/16).

1.2 We return home.

1.3 Back home we tried to rebook the flight using “Manage my Booking” on BA.com website. Numerous attempts to book a different flight failed, resulting in message “unexplained error”. Faced with being unable to resolve this, we decided our only option was to accept the 07:05 BA0902 booking for the following day (29/03/16).

29/03/16

2.1 Up at 03:00am arrived at Heathrow T5 at 05:00. Check-in documents state departure is from gate C65. Waiting with other passengers at gate C65 is becomes obvious that something is wrong. Enquiries discover the flight is not at C65, it is gate A8. All waiting passengers then rush back from C terminal to A where they started. While waiting at gate A8, BA announce the cabin crew are being sought and the flight will be delayed until all members of staff have arrived

2.2 At this point BA ask for volunteers to check their cabs luggage in at the gate to relieve pressure on internal storage. To try and help, we checked our cabin luggage in as requested.

2.3 Boarding finally complete and ready to depart, the Flight Deck announce that a passenger is unwell and will be leaving the aircraft. This will result in further delays while their luggage is located and removed from the aircraft.

2.4 Passenger issue dealt with, the aircraft is pushed back from the stand. After a short delay the Flight Deck announce that one of the engines is defective and will not start. This will result in delays while engineers are consulted. The aircraft is then towed to a remote standing area. Some time later the Flight Deck announce that the aircraft has a faulty fuel control valve and cannot be repaired for the flight. A change of aircraft will need to happen but there are problems locating another Boeing 767, necessary to accommodate all the passengers. The Flight Deck inform us that the faulty part is the cost of a small house and BA does not carry spares. A member of the cabin crew inform us that the faulty aircraft is 30 years old, inferring the problem is related to the age of the aircraft. With serious delays now evident, the Flight Deck ask for passengers who do not wish to travel, to come forward. The tone of this announcement is friendly. The numbers of leavers are established and are insufficient to allow the flight to continue on a smaller aircraft. Flight Deck now announce any passengers leaving the aircraft are taking themselves off flight and will not get a refund. There is a noticeable change of tone in the second announcement. Cabin crew decide to serve a drink and roll.

2.5 After what seems like another couple of hours waiting for another aircraft to be found, buses finally arrived to transport us. With passengers finally seated on the replacement aircraft, Flight Deck announce there are problems reconciling the passenger numbers. Frantic activity then follows by BA staff up and down the aircraft with passenger lists. It is clear to everyone that there is a problem that staff are struggling to deal with. A seat by seat check is then made of every passenger. To our surprise we are told that our names do not appear on the passenger list. We are reassured by cabin crew that everything is in order.

2.6 The aircraft finally takes off. The atmosphere among passengers was not a happy one and reflected what was considered to be unacceptable performance by BA staff in handling the situation. By now it was obvious to us that the cabin crew were weary and embarrassed with the situation. Many passengers were also victims of flight cancellation the previous day. This 07:05 flight finally landed at Frankfurt at 13:35.

2.7. Waiting for 45 minutes at the baggage carousel it became clear that our, and other passengers baggage was missing and had not arrived with the flight.

2.8 After locating and arriving at the British Airways desk in Frankfurt, only one check-in desk was manned. We had to join the long queue and wait approx 45 minutes to be attended. On handing over the two baggage receipt tags (no’s 013120 and 017684, we were told our luggage was still in London and would be sent over on a later flight. Incident reference FRABA86401 was issued.

2.9 Being stranded at a strange airport without our luggage and unsure how to deal with the situation, our first thoughts were to try and return to Heathrow . The response from BA was that we would have to buy another tick at additional cost.

3.0 Fortunately located in the city centre we had to purchase essential toiletries and emergency items as there was no indication if or when we would receive our cases.

3.1 At 16:28 we receive a text message from Worldtracer to say one bag (tag ref 013120) was en-route from London. No reference was made to our second bag (017684), (the one we handed over to the airline staff at the gate). All online enquiries only showed the original one bag checked in at arrival at Heathrow. As this bag contained important medication, we made several frantic calls to the BA Missing Baggage people at Frankfurt at considerable cost.

3.2 At 22:15 the first bag (ref: 013120) arrived at our hotel. Our other bag (ref:017684) containing vital medication arrived the following day.

3.3 So distraught and upset by the whole experience, we cancelled all our scheduled plans and activities in Frankfurt. The time spent in the hotel recovering from the ordeal left one day for sightseeing.

Conclusion:

Although we were thanked for our patience, no-one apologised for the unacceptable service. A telephone call, text or e-mail with an apology and a token gesture of goodwill would have been much appreciated to lessen the pain and disappointment. You are quick to communicate with offers for us to spend more money, less so when things go wrong. For a moment we thought we were the cast in a movie called Carry On Flying. Not willing to experience anything like this this future, we have decided never to fly again, certainly not with BA. Hard as it may seem, this is a true account of how we were treated by British Airways. It also raises serious questions about the competence of them to operate an airline service.

We suggest your slogan should be British Airways Takes No Care of You.

Ray & Estilla Collington

Ray Collington

Bracknell, UK

Useless BA Customer Relations

Edwin Lim My wife and my Premium Economy flight was cancelled on the 19th of Dec 2015 and rebooked on ANA Economy. Your ground staff told me that I will be compensated with the difference between British Airways Premium Economy flight ($3500) and the British Airways Economy flight ($1500) even though we were booked onto a different airline. Up till now I have not received compensation of the fare difference. It has been more than 3 months! Contact customer relations and service but still no update! This is very disgusting and unethical! #boycottBritishAirways

Edwin

Singapore

No crew at Heathrow to fly an A319???

So it's March 29th, the day after Storm Katie and Flight 778 from LHR to Stockholm is delayed for over three hours. It's not because of the storm (all the other flights from here are going on time) - it's because there is no crew to fly an A320 available at Heathrow airport, and it's going to take over three hours to call in a reserve crew. How can this happen at BA's home airport?

I also asked about a meal voucher, because I seem to remember that proper airlines give those out for delays over 2 hours, but was told they are not offering anything.

Geoff

Heathrow

Worst customer service ever!

Bye Bye British Airways - worst customer service ever. Their check-in desk made us miss our check-in time at LHR and after filing customer reclamation they pretty much told us where to shove it. cost us almost 1K€ to buy new tickets via one of their alliance airlines.

Jatta

Finland

Happiness Blanket more like vomit blanket!

I had the questionable pleasure of travelling with British Airways and getting to trail one of their "happiness blankets", it sounded like a great idea, it looked like a great idea but it smelt like a terrible one! I've no idea where they stored these things or if they ever bothered washing them (probably not as it would ruin them) but the smell of the blanket made me feel so nauseous it was the worst flight of my life by a long way! never using them again, and word to the wise if you ever hear mention of this miracle "happiness blanket" throw your boarding pass away and buy a different flight!

Dan Jones

London

BA loses luggage of all flight passengers, AGAIN!!

After the July 2014 fiasco where BA lost the luggage of 1000 passengers, BA has managed to fail yet again.

I took flight BA099 from T5 London to Toronto 16 December 2015 with some 200 passengers. Upon arrival in Toronto and after watching an empty conveyor belt rotate for an hour we were told that ALL passenger luggage was unavailable and apprently stuck in cargo; amidst the chaos we all had to file missing report claims.

4 days has gone by without any news and I am livid. Customer reps are denying they know anything. I will never fly BA again. I only wish I had been made aware of its abysmal track record in baggage handling before I trusted them with my personal affects and Christmas gifts. BA thanks for ruining xmas.

Will never fly BA again.

Livid in Toronto

Toronto

Claim Filed

In September I was served a premium economy meal on a BA flight from JFK that was so bad it choked me. After lengthy correspondence I gave up on both customer relations and their CEO, Keith Williams, and filed a County Court Claim against them. It reads -

When the booking was made BA had inflated their fares in the run up to a fare sale. That means the transaction breached the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 and possibly also Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006. In simple terms BA claimed that the fare quoted was ‘lowest available’ at a time when they knew it was nothing of the sort.

To compound the offence BA also failed miserably to live up their promise of service on the flights involved. I flew London (Heathrow) to Boston on 11 September 2015. Our outbound flight departure was delayed, which was a minor inconvenience compared to the abysmal service provided by BA during the return flight on 16 September 2015.

Because it was an overnight flight I booked a seat in World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) to get extra leg room and better cabin service. The BA description of World Traveller Plus reads - 'small, intimate cabins with expert, attentive service' along with 'delicious meals and full bar service'. The BA website goes on to promise, 'three-course meals crafted to perfectly match the time and duration of your flight' and, 'a premium dining experience, featuring high-quality ingredients, fine china and linen napkins.' What we actually got was the economy meal option served in china with metal cutlery. The BA website also claims World Traveller Plus offers an enhanced entertainment package and more leg room, neither of which were apparent – in fact the entertainment package was identical to regular economy. We shared the cabin services and toilets with regular economy, the food was rubbish (in fact the food in Economy outbound was better) and the drinks trolley came round once. I suffered a serious choking fit after trying to eat a disgusting pasta meal that was part cooked/part reheated/part overheated and was then offered no further food until the ‘breakfast’ (a little cardboard box containing inedible snacks - identical to the economy breakfast) came round about six hours later. To falsely describe this as a ‘Premium’ service goes way beyond misleading into the area of fraud by misrepresentation.

I have contacted BA without success. In fact I referred both issues directly to BA’s CEO, Keith Williams. At the time of writing they had refused to refund the £181 overcharge and failed to respond to my complaints about service on the return flight.

Since that claim, which BA are contesting, they have also refused to honour a 20% offer on Avios points purchased with Tesco ClubCard vouchers and tried to bump up the fares on a pre-booked trip for my 65th birthday next February by £300. I'm getting nowhere fast on the Avios, they're just ignoring me. I have now cancelled the birthday trip and re-booked it with Virgin Atlantic but BA are still sending reminders and trying to bill me for the balance.

I've also got another interesting little tale about BA. In October I flew with them to the Cayman Islands on one of their ancient Boeing 767s - this is the same type used on the Calgary route that generated the recent 'Widower made to stand' story. I had an exit seat and was told that because the aircraft was being flown 'short-crewed' the passengers in the exit rows were responsible for evacuation. We then had a briefing that omitted the required visual check for hazards outside the aircraft, like fire, before opening the door. Next thing was the safety video crashed so we went back to the old-style pre-flight briefing. The plane was 25 years old and showing every day of it.

Good luck with your claim John. From what I understand, legal action often seems to be the only way to get BA Customer Relations to respond.

John Evans

UK

I felt humiliated!

On the way back from NY to London, my original seat had some problem with the in-flight entertainment system. So, I was upgraded to the Premium Economy. I was happy with my original seat and for me, economy and "premium" economy makes no difference. The seat that was offered to me in "premium' was in the front row with extra leg-room.

The flight attendant didn't really take the time to explain to me on how to take out the tray from my seat (it was my first time seating in front row of "premium"). So anyway, it was dinner time and another flight attendant came and asked me of what menu did I chose for dinner. I asked her that I didn't see the menu and if its ok for her to tell me on what is in the menu. Instead of offering me with the menu choices, she asked me where did you come from? I told her I was upgraded. Instead of serving me dinner, she told me to wait and that she will have to check with her supervisor. It was so awkward! After upon checking and got her "approval" to serve me dinner, she briefed me about the menu. Before she served me the dinner, I told her that I wasn't sure of how to take out my tray. She ignored me and put the food tray ON MY LAP instead of showing me of how to take out the tray/table. It was humiliating. I felt like she did it on purpose.

Luckily, a passenger beside me was kind enough to pull out the tray for me. That was the first time for me to fly BA and also the last time!! Never again!

S. Mun

Kuala Lumpur

BA has downgraded us twice in 3 trips

Three years ago we were forced into a downgrade from First to Business on a trip from Phoenix to LHR. Once again, this week on an AA code share from LHR to PHL we were again forced into a downgraded from First to Business. Trying to get a refund of the points we paid for the trip is impossible - you think that they would at least refund a portion of the $1100 in taxes and surcharge fees levied for a First Class ticket.

Joe Furlong

El Paso, Texas

BA now giving out jump seats as adequate travel for passengers

My flight was overbooked and I was placed on standby at the airport although I had been trying to check-in online without success since the previous evening and arrived in plenty of time for my flight. I was finally given a seat at the gate however when I boarded the plane there was already someone in that seat. I was advised by ground crew staff that I would need to de-board and depart on a flight the following day however a disagreement ensued between the cabin services director and the ground crew staff member as the director stated that she had seats available in a higher class. This was looked into but passengers arriving at the last minute then claimed those seats. The director then advised me that I had two options, to come off the plane and travel the following day or spend part of my flight sitting in a cabin crew rest seat and a small part in a jump seat (used by crew only for take off and landing) when the crew needed to take their breaks. She estimated that I would be in the jump seat for roughly 2.5 hours. I asked her if I would be entitled to some compensation for this and she said that this would be reasonable given that the airlines would be obligated to compensate me were I to come off the plane and have my travel plans delayed until the following day. I then reluctantly agreed as I had family plans and trusted (mistakenly) that BA would compensate me for this strange arrangement.

A few hours into the flight I was asked to vacate the seat for the crew breaks and while sitting in the jump seat I enquired about when I would be able to return to the other seat. A flight attendant showed me the break schedule and I then learned that I would have to use the jump seat for close to 5 hours and not 2.5 as I had been told. I spent the first hour in a jump seat between the toilet and the kitchen which was quite unpleasant due to the smells, traffic through the area which resulted in me getting bumped into a few times by crew and queries by passengers who kept mistaking me for crew.

A flight attendant then suggested that I move to another jump seat as they said I might be warmer there. I wasn't cold but I suspected they thought I would be a bit more out of the way and I was hopeful this would be the case too. I then sat in a seat facing other passengers a few feet away which was quite awkward although not as much traffic moving around me. There was really much for me to do as I had no in flight entertainment and not adequate light to read. And after another hour I became so uncomfortable in the hard seat that I had to stand or walk around for most of the remaining few hours until I could sit back in the other seat. By the time I arrived at the end of this 10 hour flight my neck and back were pretty stiff and sore. My luggage also didn't make it but I was so glad to be off the plane I didn't even care that much and BA did give me a $50 voucher for that.

The cabin services director informed me that she was going to put in a complaint on my behalf and also spoke to ground crew and informed them of my journey and that I needed to be given an upgrade on the way back. They seemed unsure about this but said they'd look into it. The director said that I should hear from someone in the next week. When I didn't hear from anyone after I week I phoned and was informed that someone was looking into it and they would get back to me before I was to return home to London. The day before I was to fly back I still had not heard anything so I contacted them again. Someone phoned and left a message informing me that they were going to compensate me by giving me an upgrade to from Economy to World Traveller Plus (a bit more leg room) on the way back.

I phoned back and spoke with someone else stating that this compensation did not seem adequate given my extremely uncomfortable flight experience, being mislead about the time in the jump seat, not really having a seat at all on this flight and being led to believe I'd be entitled to similar compensation as I would have if I had gotten off the flight. I added that had I known it would have been so uncomfortable I probably would have gotten off the flight. She said that she would pass this on and someone would get back to me. I asked her if someone could please email me if they don't reach me by phone as I was busy with family on my last day of the visit and then travelling the next day.

I received a phone message again from from the first person who had contacted me who said he would try me again or email me. I returned to London and after a week of receiving no email I wrote to them again and said that things still hadn't been resolved and if I don't hear from someone in the next week or so I will get some legal advice. About 3 or 4 weeks later I heard from a third person who said that she understood I was offered an upgrade and a refund in fares and was not satisfied with this however there was nothing more they could do. I responded and informed her that at no point was I offered a refund (which I would have been completely satisfied with). A few weeks passed and no response so I wrote again. I received a phone call from her another couple of weeks later and she stated that I was not entitled to a refund as I had accepted the flight arrangements offered. I emphasised that I had been given false information by BA staff and subjected to a highly unusual and uncomfortable fight experience however she repeated that I agreed to the flight. Appalling.

N S Brown

London

Worst Customer Service ever

I had a semi flexible ticket from london to Brussels. I was sick during the night and assumed that I would be able to use the ticket for another flight (ticket was over £338 - I am a gold member) - how wrong was I! BA treats "no shows" as cancellation and passenger is not entitled to either a refund or rebooking. I booked my next flight with LUFTHANSA and will continue to do so. They just lost a loyal customer. DON'T FLY BA!

I hate BA with a passion but this behaviour seems reasonable to me. Unless you let them know within a reasonable time that you do not intend to fly, they can't offer the seat to someone else.

jutta

Surrey

Shame on you British Airways

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

British Airways BA15

Confirmed

9:35 PM

Depart

Heathrow, London United Kingdom

LEISURE TRAVELLER

5:40 PM on Wednesday

Arrive

Changi Intl Arpt, Singapore

Journey Time: 13:05

On these above dates we booked at the end of May and as you can see all were confirmed.On the Day of travel we rocked up at Manchester Airport for our tickets only to be told on our Singapore flight we would have to sit in separate rows on the next Heathrow flight. I am a 70 yr old pensioner with lots of medical issues that my wife Ann monitors (I take 16 tablets a day +heart and asthma inhalents) and she gives them to me at appropriate times (she was previously in her younger life a nurse). Ticket person at Manchester advised to take it up at Heathrow (connecting flight). Once again ticket attendant said there was nothing she could do !! and advised we see the Information officer who again advised they couldn’t help. On boarding the Supervisor could see we were visibly stressed and checked our ticket (which was stamped COMPASSIONATE) and after lots of consultation put me and my very upset wife together (the Supervisor was fantastic). If our surnames were different I could understand the separation BUT with more than 2 months prior booking we were still separated ! I know this may not be in the breaking news category but I feel better just by letting someone know of our predicament. It is a very long 13 hours being seperated (I have sent a letter of Complaint to British Airways and I suspect that has now been thrown in the trash!!) Shame on You British Airways !!!!

Geoff Luxton

Australia

A new low in customer service?

I flew BA from Atlanta to Heathrow with my 11 year old daughter. We had to sit in different areas - no attempt by BA to sit us even remotely near each other. OK seating is sometimes difficult.The real issue is that BA cabin staff were sweetness itself before asking me to complete a passenger questionnaire which I completed honestly. I and my daughter were ignored by cabin staff for the remainder of the flight.I have since discovered that cabin staff carefully select passengers to hand out the questionnaire to. If it is not positive the returned form is binned.

John Weir

Buckinghamshire

Luggage Destroyed

I traveled on BA from San Francisco to Moscow through Heathrow in May of this year. When I received my luggage (which is was only six months old at the time) it had a smashed corner. I filed my claim. BA insists that I follow a process as follows:

1) Purchase a new piece of luggage for less than 150 pounds (they will not compensate for the actual cost of the damaged luggage).

2) Write a letter explaining why I feel they should replace my luggage.

3) Send the original receipt (without which the warranty will be void).

4) Wait even longer than the 2 months it took them to respond to my claim which was filed at the airport on the day of my arrival.

I am the president of a company that specializes in Customer Experience Quality. I fly 120,000 - 150,000 miles per year always in Business or First Class.

If BA thought about this a bit, they would surely not make the process so difficult. I have gone out of my way NOT to fly on BA for the past 3 months. I estimate that they have lost at least 15 times more than my luggage cost by not resolving this issue quickly.

Michael Ruckman

Moscow

Ba sucks!!!!!

I booked a trip home on Christmas day this year and BA decided to cancel my flight. Meaning I'd not be able to spend Christmas with my family which I hadnt seen for 7 years!

They said there was no flights on Christmas this year. Well why book me one and cancel it...

That's not the worst part. They wouldn't let me move it with out paying over $300 in fees and if I cancelled the flight I'd only get the taxes I paid and none of the cost of the flight back. I was on the phone with them for 3 hours and they basically just kept repeating themselves over and over...

BTW they were Indian so that was a barrel of monkeys there. I just wanted to come on here and tell everyone to never ever book with British airways! And I'm British. FU BA!!!!!

Terence

USA

Worst Service

British Airways air hostess seems to be the worst especially from Bangalore to London ...absolutely unfriendly without helping old people to keep their luggage on the top. They only worry about their make up and hair style that is it. They are end of it all air hostes... not a queen... I don't remember the name though... very rude and unfriendly... name must be Vanita not sure but tall curly hair some what round face.... they should remember that they are only air hostess and they should do their pleasant job with a pleasant attitude...

engai

mumbai

Lack of customer Service

This is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you this morning. I received a call from my mother in SA this morning to advise me that my father passed away at 6am this morning. No I am fully aware that this is not your problem, but this is where BA’s inflexible policies and serious lack of customer service comes in.

I am trying to book a flight for my son, wife and I to get to SA as quickly as possible.

My wife and I had pre-booked tickets to Washington to visit my son. We booked World Traveller Plus seats and used my BA Gold upgrades to move us to Business Class. I phoned the BA Gold helpline this morning to see if I can change the tickets to fly directly to Johannesburg instead of Washington.

I have now been advised that we have to downgrade to Economy, will lose our upgrade vouchers, and have to pay GBP 1600 per person in addition to the original cost of the ticket.

I am not going to explain any further, this is the worst of the worst. It happened last year as well when my dad had a heart attack and I had to bring my flight forward by a day, it cost me GBP 2000 for a lower class seat.

What a wonderful Company you manage !!!!!! But then you are making the policies !!!!!

I cannot wait to get BA out of my life when I change employment. I am even willing to forfeit my 1.5m airmiles.

I am now flying tomorrow night after having had to pay the excess purely because I don’t have a choice - this is how you exploit your customers.

I will definitely make this well know on social media, you have pushed me too far this time during a very sad period in my life. Knowing how you operate I am more than happy to make a death certificate available to ensure you that i am not making this up.

Disgusting treatment to say the least !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dawid Louw

UK

Agent vs Call Centre = Two Missed Flights

We got stuck in a fatal accident traffic jam at Montelimar in France. Realising that we were going to miss our 4pm flight we called (on a mobile) to BA Customer Service. They booked us on the next flight 7.15 and took all the payment details. The sent us confirmation by email.

On arrival at the airport, we could not check in as our seats were confirmed, but no ticket had been issued. Another 30 minute call confirmed that we just had to give card details at the local BA agent.

The confirmation was in Pounds. The agent only works in Euros. We stood for over an hour and a half whilst the local agent and the call centre argued about how to change the system so we could pay. Eventually, after the Check-In was forced to close (they'd given us an extra 15 minutes to work it out) the call centre agent threw his hands up and hung up.

We missed the flight and went back on to the website for the 07.00 next morning, following which we retired for an expensive night in the airport hotel and necessary subsistence.

BA CS didn't even read the details of the complaint and sent us a stock response about our responsibility to be at the gate on time. We are pursuing it with everyone from Keith Williams and Denize McGregor through to an undoubtedly beleaguered Customer Experience Manager called Matthew Rochell, whose name appeared in LinkedIn.

We shall wait and see, but the CS attitude really sucks.

Jonathon Howard

Kent

Separating mother and child

My wife just called crying after boarding because BA staff would not trouble themselves to effectively find 2 seats together for my wife and 13 year old daughter. Our family trip had to be staggered to minimize time away from home so our tickets were booked under different reservations. However, I checked on this in advance and BA stafff told me on the phone "no way will staff not ensure that mother and daughter can sit together". Then 23.999 hours before flight we went online and tried to reserve seats together each time it looked like two seats were together they came up as occupied when we tried to reserve. At check-in we were assured that everything would be done to seat them together. I was not present but obviously they did not try too hard to find anyone to switch, any seats anywhere. WHEN DID BRITISH AIR STAFF not only stop caring, but STOP BEING HUMAN ?

Jorge Velasquez

DFW to Oslo

Seat Swap

Bought an expensive business class ticket from LON to San Diego. Picked window seat 3 months in advance. Day of check-in, one day before departure and they stuck me in a middle aisle seat (apparently decided to give my seat to someone else). There was no change in aircraft in spite of what the agent told me.....always 777 into San Diego

Larry Vernec

San Diego

WORST AIRLINE EVER!

On June 3rd at about 6:30am, I got to Heathrow to catch my flight to Italy. I only had my carry on bag as my main luggage went from Toronto all the way to Italy so I had no bags to check. I went to a BA rep to get my passport checked and whatnot. He asked me if I had any bags to check. I told him no, this is my carry on. He asked me to put it on the scale. I said ok, but it's my carry on. He said he needed to see it. So I put it on the scale. As I was getting my passport ready to give to him, I noticed my bag was gone. I said excuse me, where is my bag? He said and I quote "oh no, I am sorry ma'am" He got his co-workers attention at the next desk over and said "I put this lady's carry on through bag check with no tag" She said there is no way she can get it now. So he called down to bag claim and informed me that my bag would either be at the gate before I boarded or it will be in Bologna when I get off my flight. When I arrived at the gate to board my flight, I spoke to two people. A gentleman and a lady who asked me “did one of my BA reps do this?” I said yes. She took down my information (name, email, phone number, and the contact info of where I was staying in Italy) and told me she would keep me posted on the whereabouts of my bag. When I got to Bologna, we spoke to Antonio in Lost and Found. He gave us the number to file a claim, took the description of my bag and told us that as soon as the bag comes, they will ship it to where I was staying. I still have not heard anything from the lady who took down my information at Heathrow. To this day, I have still not heard anything. Instead of being updated on the whereabouts of my carry on, I had to purchase two calling cards in order to call London because nobody was calling me. The lack of customer service was atrocious. After I got through to a BA rep, they informed that my bag would be delivered to me the next day. I did not receive my bag after 4 days. As a result of not having my carry on, I could not purchase anything due to the fact that my wallet was in my carry on. I could not eat, store my contacts, wear my glasses and could not take my medication. I complained to BA via Twitter and they told me that they would compensate me for "essentials" and to send my receipts. I did just that and they declined my claim. First of all, they kept saying my bag was delayed. This is not an everyday occurrence where a bag gets delayed. This man failed to do his job properly and put my CARRY ON through to bag check with NO TAG after I told him twice that it was my CARRY ON. I don't think carry on's go missing on a daily basis due to being put through to bag check after he was basically told not too. In a special situation like this, I would expect BA to take ownership of their mistake and go above and beyond and compensate me for the 91 Euros that I am asking for. I could be asking for a free trip or upgrade to first class when I came back home, but all I am asking for is what I had to pay for in the 4 days that I did not have my bag due to an incompetent BA rep. This has been going on for almost a month now and I refuse to give up because what this man did was wrong. It may have been a mistake, he obviously was not listening to me and not paying attention, but BA has done nothing to help me. Attached is my Twitter conversation with about 10 different BA reps (which is also very unprofessional. There should be one rep assigned to one issue). British Airways lack of customer service is disgusting and I am working on going to the media with my story because it is not everyday that an airline rep loses someone's carry on. Goes without saying that I will never fly with them again. They deserve to be boycotted and thrown out of business!

Nicole

Kitchener, ON

Paid for upgradable fare but they won't let me upgrade

I've traveled with my family in (paid) Business Class a handful of times. For an upcoming trip I booked us in Premium Economy for the return trip-but paid an additional $2,000 to get upgradable fares. They never told me that between the online system thinking our fare wasn't upgradable and reservation agents that couldn't figure it out- there's really no way for us to upgrade. I've only spent about ten hours working on this, four on hold and six hours getting the run around from everyone. They're all apologetic, but unable to do anything about it. I used to be one of their biggest supporters, but given the way I've been treated, I'm putting them into the same category with United. While they shouldn't treat any passengers this way, the fact that they're treating a paying business class passenger this way shows how little they care about service.

David

San Francisco

Horrible Cabin Service

I was traveling with my wife and 7 month old daughter, while I was helping my wife make my daughter comfortable I requested for a glass of warm water, the stewardess who was busy chatting up another passenger on what sushi she likes, asked me to get it myself from the aisle. Later when I asked for warm water again, she said she didnt have any in her trolley and didnt offer to get some nor did she request for someone to get it for us. This happened a couple of times. The bassinet that was provided was dirty with bits of eatables and spots of dried up drinks. In the end when the captain informed that the plane was about to land , the same person came to me and asked me to clean up the space , the tray table while I was holding the baby and she walked away. She didnt even provide a bag to put the stuff that needed to be gotten rid of. When I asked for a bag with a stern voice, she took a filled up bag (a random plastic bag)from a fellow passenger and handed it over to me. She stood while i was on the ground cleaning the carpet of the plane and the table. BA , this is the last time i travel and also recommend the airline to anyone. I have traveled a lot in many other airlines but none stood out like BA did with their bad service.(Flight from LHR-PHX)

Allen

US

Seat assignment fee non refundable

I paid 78 Euros for an early seat assignment on BA. Later I changed to another flight and discovered that the fee is non refundable. What a rip-off! to charge a fee in the first place, but to not refund it when you don't fly is even worse! I hope I never have to fly BA again.

J Johnson

Reno

Crooks and Low Life Scum

Pre-booked a seat at a price for a friend, and on check-in, seat was not available. Demanded a refund, and one idiot told me the payment will be made to refund the money, and they were sorry for the inconvenience.

Later, and much later some other moron informs me that it will now not be refunded, because they decided not to.

Complained again, and now have a fourth reference case number issued. Not a single reply.

These people mug you in every way possible.

Pathetic. Shambles. Disgraceful

I S Bhandal

Singapore

BA does not give a shit about its passengers

By all rights, I should LOVE Brtiish Airways.

I fly BA several times a year round trip, from IAD to TLS, via LHR.

The reservation system is satisfactory. The scheduling fits my needs to a 'T'. The planes are as comfortable as I can expect. The BA airport staff is super (although the Heathrow Staff leaves much to be desired). The on-board crews are just wonderful. The food is decent. I feel safe with BA. They are generally on-time. And, I can accept their high prices.

So, what is not to like?

In fact, why do I HATE British Airways?

Because British Airways does not give a shit about its passengers.

BA loses my baggage about 25 to 30 percent of the time.

Actually, I understand and accept that my bags will be delayed on occasion.

My connection in LHR only gives me a maximum of 65 minutes to make the flight to TLS. And that is when everything goes perfectly.

If we arrive late or are delayed in a gate assignment, or when it takes a little longer to get off the flight from IAD, I have to RUN to try to make the next plane. Most times I am sweaty and out-of-breath when I reach the gate. And even then, I don't always make it. Fortunately, there is another flight 5 hours later. But, that's life. I stroll Heathrow, do some shopping and wait out the delay. No big deal!

So, I really, really, truly understand and accept that my bags will be delayed on occasion and I am relaxed about that.

However, it is how BA handles the lost/delayed baggage situation that INFURIATES me and prompts me to swear off BA forever.

Why?

Because BA absolutely does not give a shit about its passengers in this regard.

To say that they could not care less is a gross understatement.

First, they send an e-mail or text message notifying me about the delayed bag, AFTER I have already determined that my bag has not arrived. Duh!

But at least they're communicating, so how can one be pissed at that.

Here is where the system breaks down.

Then, they contract out their lost baggage problem to an outfit that cares even less than they do. Dour, pissed off, unsmiling automatons, who profess to know NOTHING about EVERYTHING, dutifully collect your information and file a report. These dunces then inform you that everything will be done to reunite me with my baggage as soon as humanly possible. Ask when, where, who and how, and you get the idiot treatment, until you are shooed from the line so that they can deal with the next victim.

Now the fun begins. There is NO WAY to contact BA regarding lost baggage. BA provides a convenient webpage, which merely assures you that your report is on-file. BA provides you with a phone number, open from 0700 to 2300, 7 days a week, that goes unanswered for an indeterminable time. (By the way, have you ever tried to call the BA Executive Club, another outfit that does all in its power to avoid communication?). BA will send an email that delivery of your bags is important to them and that they are working as hard as humanly possible to get them to you. BA will do EVERYTHING but keep you informed with real, critical, useful information...and, of course, accomplish the REAL objective, get your bags to you in a timely manner.

Now, my bags were dutifully weighed and checked in when I got my boarding pass at IAD. My bags were issued a bar-coded tag which told the baggage handling staff just how the bags were to be routed to make my initial flight and connecting flight. Because of the short time between flights, my bags were specifically identified with a tag with a purple 'X' reading SHORT. As I said, I KNOW the connection is short and I marvel at the process that gets my bag to TLS at the same time I do, most of the time.

In short, no pun intended, I understand that the bags sometimes do not make my last flight.

Now, FedEX, DHL and even the Royal Mail and other reputable parcel delivery outfits also put bar-codes on their parcels. They know, in real time, where almost every parcel and envelope in their system is at any time.

So, why do I have to sit hours and days wondering what is happening to my bags?. Why do I lack the means to track my bags? Why doesn't BA answer the phone in a reasonable time? Why doesn't doesn't BA make an effective stab to keep me informed as to their super-human efforts to get my bags to me? Why do I have to wait up to x days for my bags to arrive, when they actually arrive at TLS just 5 hours after I do? Why do I have to twiddle my thumbs NOT doing the things I came to Toulouse to do. Why do I have the time to write this bitch letter?

All because BA does not give a shit about its passengers and their misplaced luggage.

That's why.

Kind of disappointing, isn't it, that an outfit who claims that it is world-class, actually is third-world class.

LDD

LDD

Toulouse, France

The worst!!!

BA is really the worst airlines to travel in. I cannot make any changes to my online booking! When I call their inefficient customer care service no one picks up. For the cost of their ticket, they ought to be giving a lot more. This is really the limit!

MS

Singapore

Downgraded – a victim of BA’s policy of “load maximization”

What is more serious, to cheat someone out of a large sum or to cheat numerous people out of small amounts?

I was downgraded against my will (BA009, 30.12.14) due to BA’s aggressive overselling of seats and my repeated demands for compensation produced no results. Whilst I can accept changes to my flight due to technical reasons or force majeure, I deeply resent being the victim of BA’s policy of “load maximization” at the expense of the customer and expect fair compensation (The rules on passengers' rights known as EC261 apply as well as Regulation (EC) 261/2004).

British Airways’ business model is based on aggressive overbooking of flights in order to maximize their load factor, which could be viewed as a reasonable attempt to enhance profitability. Regrettably, this leads to passengers being denied boarding or downgrading. These situations are governed by various rules and regulations, which outline procedures and compensation levels. BA’s business model does not foresee adequate compensation for its bounced passengers, in the knowledge that passengers will not pursue their claims since lawyer fees will exceed any compensation. It seems that the airline, as a matter of policy, does not ask for volunteers to surrender their reservations against compensation and instead of compensating 75% of the ticket cost pays only a standard GBP 75 with no further recourse for additional compensation.

If you ever get “bounced” insist on immediate, full compensation because you will never obtain anything after your flight, regardless of what you are being told by the airline staff.

Hi Rene,As you rightly point out, it is much better to try and resolve the issue at the time as negotiating a successful outcome with BA "Customer Service" at a later date is often extremely difficult, assuming you can get through at all.Neil

Rene Neef

Thailand

BA employee can have lost items without any responsibility

I lost my phone at the business lounge. When I told an aircrew about the lost phone as soon as I got into the airplane, somebody called the lounge. Luckily, I was told that my lost phone was found at the lounge and my name will be attached to the phone. However, the aircrew said that I have to make a claim through the lost and found office to receive the phone. When I made claim through the lost and found office, they said the phone was not received. I learned from the BA customer office that BA contract out the lost and found business. BA said they are not responsible for my lost phone even though BA employee found it and informed me that it was found. As you can guess, the lost and found would not be responsible, either. It means technically, BA employee can have any lost items without any responsibility.

I now understand why the Heathrow airport got a nickname “Thiefrow”. Obviously, this system has something wrong and should be fixed by law I think but I do not know how.

Hyungchul Kim

USA

BA Never Again

British Air is terrible. just last week , they lose my Mac Laptop... and when I tried to talk to customer service in terminal 5, the jerk working there try to have security take me away instead of dealing and helping with my situation.

NEVER AGAIN!!!!

David

London

BA (Best Avoided)

To this airline, all passengers are a major inconvenience, between, them taking your payment and dumping you off at your destination.

Such is the arrogance of the airline, you must demonstrate to them, that it is a privilage for YOU to fly with them.

In other words, "you have not had a good time, unless you have been completely ripped off".

ISB

Singapore

Trying to use my child to extort an extra 200 GBP

I've long been a frequent flyer with a
competitor to BA, but
after several recent poor experiences, I decided to try BA for a flight
at
Christmas with my son. While BA has very high advance seat reservation
charges,
part of my decision to buy was their guarantee that they would
accommodate
parents traveling with children 5 days before the flight with seating
together at no extra charge. The website is here: http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/seating/choosing-your-seat

As it is the holidays, this was a very
serious
consideration for my purchase.

I've now spent the better part of two days on the phone with
British Airways customer service, even going as far yesterday to wait on hold
for over an hour to speak to a supervisor, and they are flatly refusing to
honor this request.

The reasons I have been given:

1) I was initially told that this was because my son was 6,
not 5 years old, I pointed to them very clearly that nowhere was this stated on
their website.

2) I was then told this was due to the
fact the seat was booked via a travel agent. Nowhere on the website does
the caveat exist that reserved seats with children can only be secured
if the seats
were booked directly on BA.com

Regardless of where the seat was purchased, the birthday and age of
my son is clearly labeled in the online record, showing 2008 as his birth
year.

I feel it is shameful behavior of British Airways to refuse
to honour a seating request as guaranteed on their website, given the extra
cost of buying these seats in advance will cost a further 200 GBP above what is
already a small fortune to travel during the holidays. Further, the lack of
response from their customer service, despite repeated calls, time on hold, and
sending emails to their customer service website, has been truly appalling. I
feel like I've been misled, cheated, and duped in an effort of BA to extort
further cash, using my son as a tool.

It is truly shameful and disgusting
behavior. I have filed a false advertising complaint with the British ASA.

piliage

Brussels

Online check-in error and lack of essential informaiton: could not fly

I checked in online but there was an 'error' when printing out my boarding pass so I was prompted to get a print-out at the airport. However when I got there they would not print it out stating that I had missed a check-in cut off time by two minutes.

When I bought the tickets AND when I was managing my booking online there was no indication of a 35 minute cut off. I was mortified. If they had clearly indicated this essential fact when booking/checking in I would have happily complied; even if the flight I was schedule to take was only an hour long.

They would not let me fly, tried to sell me another ticket which was three times the price of the original, and were extremely rude.

I would like to share an interesting experience. On Feb 1, 2014 we have booked our flight to Miami.

On Feb 16th, 2014 we have paid to select seats on the plane London-Miami-London. We had the pre-selected seats on the way to Miami but BA failed to deliver on the way back (i.e. Miami to London). Even worst, we have been seated separately where places were left, read: between strangers, no window, and no aisle and as a result no comfort and no sleep. When clients are paying 6 months in advance to ensure proper seating’s, this is not acceptable.

At the airport the BA agents claimed the problem was due to the schedule change. I showed the agents the related communication and regarding the change “if you've reserved a Main Cabin Extra or Preferred seat or have pre-ordered a meal, we have reconfirmed those requests for you on the new flight number”.

I filed my complaint since 5 weeks and I have not heard back and, obviously, I have not been reimbursed.

In a nutshell: it is like if you walk in a shop, pay for the good and then the merchant looks at you with a smile and tells you “you paid but the product has already been sold – thank you and get lost”…

I will now send an e-mail to all BA executives!

Eric Hubert

Luxembourg

Ridiculous Wait Times

Even when I call BA silver line, wait times exceed 45 minutes in the US. This is ridiculous as no one has 45 min during the day to wait. How poor and uncaring can BA be? Every time you call they say they are experiencing long wait times and they urge you to go on line. If the matter could be resolved on line, why would I call them anyway. And after 45 min, sometimes they transfer you to another agent. The agents are rude and grumpy (Get another job if you don't like what you do). The club world product is 15+ years old and so outdated. Coupled with poor ground and phone service, this miserable airline is best avoided.

Vikram

USA

Hopelessly poor service

Dear British Airways, I suggest you remove the word 'British' from your name. Just 'Airways' describes far more accurately the quality of your shabby airline and why drag the rest of us in Britain down with you? I don't think there are many British companies who could mess up as badly as you did. Flight BA8737 from Frankfurt to London City was delayed due to bad weather so by the time we were eventually diverted to Gatwick, landing one and a half hours late at 22:17 it might have been obvious to you that everyone was a tad frustrated? For us to then remain on the tarmac waiting for stairs and a bus for one and a quarter hours suggests you either didn't ask for them or Gatwick staff considered your request non-priority. To add further insult we were kept waiting in the bus outside the terminal because to quote one of your own staff "security didn't know we were coming". As I say, perhaps your pretending to be the 'airline of Britain' is meant to hide how dreadfully sub-standard and dilatory your service is. Ironically we had flown out of Frankfurt where efficiency, organisation and service is a by-word. I had to take a further two train rides and two taxi rides before arriving at home at 02:30 some 4 hours late. There was an older gentleman who would have been able to get home to Weybridge but your debacle meant he missed his last train. There was a German family with young children who were with me until 00:40 at Victoria. You have shamed the name you carry and should be suitably ashamed as a result.

David Allsopp

London Gatwick

Worst Experience Ever

British Airways was overbooked so they cancelled our tickets on day of travel. We have been travelling for so many years with many other airlines but this is the first time it has happened to us. Very difficult to reach their customer service hotline to claim a refund on our Best Western hotel reservation. I will never travel by British Airways again.

Aparna Rajesh

Cary, NC

Lost bag, no customer service

Lost a very important bag. Customer service is worthless. Absolutely worthless. No help at all. I'm screwed big time.

Chuck

Somewhere

Ruined a weekend getaway!

Booked a 3pm Friday flight to get away to Rome with the wife. Boarded late, sat metres from the gate for 2 hours with a paltry cup of water, was eventually allowed back into the terminal and boarded onto a new plane which landed 4 hours late! Have been chasing compensation but being ignored!

Aumit

London

British Airways = Bloody Awful (and that's being generous!)

After my suitcase was delayed for 3 days on a 5 day trip to Rome, British Airways have done nothing but make my life a misery. They gave me no money at the airport to buy essential items and I cannot get hold of anyone to get reimbursed for the items I had to buy.

I've sent numerous emails to executives, airports, customer relations (although I could think of much better titles that would fit that 'service'). After writing on their facebook page and being told they cannot help only the team on twitter can deal with problems who are available 24/7, I registered for a twitter account and tweeted numerous times to get no reply.

Their phone lines... well, I might aswell just throw my money down the drain, as they never pick up and actually cut you off after saying lines are busy and to call back at a more convenient time... what times of day are more convenient?! I would ring then & maybe not have to waste more of my own money!!

They are a complete and utter disgrace! I have received nothing but a completely disgusting 'service' from this so called 'superior' airline.

Any ideas of how I can get my money back?!?!

K.E.W

London

British Airways is terrible!

I'm in Heathrow Airport. Just arrived from San Francisco, waiting for my connecting flight to Milan, which of course, is late.

Just few considerations regarding the 10 hours San Francisco - London flight: 1) Very full, fairly old and slightly dirty plane 2) Entertainment system in my economy seat was the size of a telephone 3) It was broken anyways 4) I asked if any of the hostess could fix it, indeed they couldn't. 6) Food was terrible. Really terrible.

I'm a frequent flyer with Cathay Pacific and Emirates, I flew Lufthansa, Quantas, Asiana, Dragon Air, Alitalia, etc. in the past and I have to say, British Airways has been definitely the worst so far.

I hope my connecting flght to be boarding soon, it is already more than 1 hour late.

Cheers

Enrico R

Heathrow Airport

Baggage SNAFU-The Story Continues

British Airways was responsible for bringing out 2 bags back from a lovely trip to Italy on July 8. They did not arrive on our incoming flight, and, since BA has always been a joy in the past, we were not worried. July 12, we received a text indicating that the bags were located and on their way home. Since then, we have had 10 days of lying, obfuscation, and misinformation. BA customer service will not respond, despite repeated requests through the Executive Club website. We have been told everything from "Your bags are in Houston, to Your bags are in Milan, to We do not know where your bags are. No one can connect us with a problem solver. SITA, the BA baggage tracking site, indicates that our bags are in Chicago, but calls to the BA Baggage center prove that this information is questionable. I am most disappointed in BA's customer service and lack of response to what is to me a very serious problem. The flights were lovely, the flight attendants fabulous, but the baggage handling and tracking site and BA customer service are inept at best and malicious at worst. Finally today, Sagar, at the BA call center in Indi, was truthful enough to tell me, "We really cannot solve your problem and we cannot put you in touch with anyone who can". While that was no help, his honesty was a breath of fresh air. Finally, after posting on social media, a problem solver from BA got in touch with me. Shortly after, on the 21st, a woman from IAH contacted me to tell me that my bags were in Houston (in fact, had been there since the 13th of July). She asked if I wanted them flown to DFW. I emphatically told her that I did not want my bags on a plane, please ship them. Well, it is now July 25th, no bags, her number does not work, and my problem solver says he is disappointed and will send my information to the head office at JFK. I would LOVE to post that they had positively solved the problem, and will when I finally get my bags back.

I lost an unmarked cell phone with no data capability at a midnight race on the 12th, in a park where there were about 1500 people. My phone was returned to me within 3 days. I find it amazing that BA cannot locate my triple tagged luggage which has been repeatedly scanned into their system, had identifiers and contents listed online, and has not been out of airline custody in 13 days.

Betty White

Stephenville, TX

Miserable series of events

My own personal reasons for finding this wonderful website:

1. On a business trip to London from Los Angeles (10 hours plus), I was downgraded from Business Class to Economy because of British Airways overbooking.

2. No apology or even sympathy from the BA staff, just a feeling that I was an inconvenience to them.

3. On the return flight, the BA baggage system was down. I was told my luggage probably wouldn't arrive the same time as I but that I would probably have my luggage within 24 hours after arriving in Chicago.

4. 42 hours later and still no sign of luggage. Many phone calls to BA in which I had to wait 20 minutes to speak to a person, and of course, on one of those I was disconnected and had to wait another 20 minutes to speak to a rep who had no record of anything I had just discussed with the first rep.

5. Received an e-mail confirming my luggage had arrived at O'Hare airport. Received a second e-mail saying it hadn't arrived but would a few hours later. Received a third e-mail saying it won't arrive until late tonight.

6. Customer service line no longer working. Outgoing message advises, "call back later."

Douglas Wood

Chicago, Illinois

British Airways don't carry longboards

Another testimonial about how bad British Airways are...A couple weeks ago I was visiting California and I bought this beautiful surfboard that I was hoping to bring back to France with me on the airplane - It never occurred to me that an airline that accepts skis, musical instruments and many more voluminous packages would refuse to take on longboards. But it did happen. So BA takes surfboards tailored for midgets (max1.90m length) but they don't accept longboards. The last time i used BA was to go skiing and they managed to lose our skis from London - so we had to rent a snowboard and a pair of skis for half of our trip in the mountains and then BA refused to pay the rental fees in the end. Now for me the price to send my surfboard via freight companies such as DHL or Fedex will cost me over 700$....which is a no go for me. So I have to sell my surfboard in San Francisco now. All this because of British Airways.....

Marianne

Will never fly British Airways

I booked a flight from Fresno, Ca to Barcelona Spain and All the airlines gave me my seat number BUT British Airways said I had to pay 86 dollars for my wife and I (in 70's) or wait until 24 hours before flight and then they said we may not sit together. HOW stupid and Greedy? If they have seats with some advantage such as more leg room then let people pay for that but give me my seat in economy so I can sit next to my wife. Anyway I cancelled my flight with them and took another airline that ended up saving me 500 dollars in airport taxes. Yep British Airways sucks.

Robert R. Watts

USA

NO ANSWER

I called 10 times in one week. each time i was holding or atleast 15 minutes. no answer. absolutely no answer. Very very annoying. Im astonished that such a huge company cant get their people to answer a damn phone call.

Manaswini

Phoenix

We fall into BA trap

BA Catastrophe

Regarding a flight from PHL to London, Heathrow. We packed our bags and got to the airport. When we arrived at the gate we realized that the plane was delayed due to what we were told was "wind going against the path of the plane". The plane was delayed an hour, and then another hour, and this continued until 1 AM. The captain finally came on and notified us that the plane engine was broken. He told us that in an hour he would let us know whether the flight would be cancelled. At 2 AM, we were told that the flight was cancelled and taht we would have to take a flight the next day. All this while, we were not served any food or water while we waited for 4 hours until a passenger requested it. At 2 AM, we were told that we could either go home, or be put in a hotel room in Philadelphia. My family opted to be put in a hotel room. Since it was 2 AM, the airport was shut down, so to retrieve our checked luggage, we had to walk 2 miles from our terminal to baggage claim, OUTSIDE. It was uncomfortable and inconvenient, especially since I was traveling with children. Next, we took the airport shuttle to a hotel in center city Philadelphia. When we got there, there was only one check in center because the hotel was understaffed, so it took us 2 hours to get into our hotel room. By the time we fell asleep, it was 5 AM. The next morning, I called a number given to us to get an update on our rescheduled flight. The man that I talked to told us that the flight was rescheudled for 6 pm that night. We got to the airport at 2 pm, at the luggage cart machine was broken, and none of the airport staff were assisting. We got in line to check in to the flight at about 4 pm, and were notified at the CHECK IN COUNTER, and were told the only way we could get to London that day was to take a shuttle to JFK and catch a flight there. We cancelled our flight and went home. The check in counter staff were so rude and it was the worst 24 hours of my life. I hate British Airways they should be disbanded!

Anonymous

Obviously not in London

Downgraded

I was downgraded from category C to category W in my fight from London to Calgary.

My complete fight was from Madrid to Calgary and I was not informed of anything until the fight was about to take off.

The manager of this fight threatened to me saying if I did not accept the downgrading, she was not able to offer to me any hotel until next fight.

I am a frequent traveler of One World and I am very disappointed with the treatment I received.

Susana

BA will take your money and run

I was coming back to Australia from Munich. I had booked a World Traveller Plus fare. 24 hours before the flight from Munich, I tried to check-in online, but the site would not allow me. When I arrived at Heathrow with 4 hours to spare, I was told I was downgraded to economy, there was no other option offered. I was given a £75 "sorry" credit card, and was told that I have to make a complaint on the BA site. I made this complaint two weeks ago, had an automated response with a case number generated, then nothing. I phone the local BA contact number a week later, I was told that they will look into this and get back to me within 48 hours. Another week has passed, still no response. Phoned again today, I was told I will be refunded in the next 30 days, but I was not told by how much. And I was told that it is an internal matter and there is no way I can find out. I have seen on your website that some people have been given a ridiculous small compensation. That is just a rip off. They are overbooking, and I am paying the cost. I travelled frequently, this has not happened to me before. Interesting how I get no responses from BA customer response, but when I posted on their facebook just now, my post was gone within 5 minutes!

Hi Wendy,Sad to say that my experience with BA "Customer Service" was similar. They eventually agreed to pay my claim and even told me the cheque was in the mail but then stopped replying to my correspondence.Neil

Wendy Tan

Australia

They sold us bogus tickets

Me and my family were going to Dallas from Helsinki on March 2013. We had bought tickets via net. We needed to change flight at Heathrow, London. Both flights were operated by BA and they were sold us as a packet. We were first timers, but we thought that 95 minutes should be enough to change from one terminal to another (T3 to T5) because at that point we had no reason to believe otherwise.

After planning they kept the doors shut maybe 15 minutes. The trip turned out to be an endless series of corridoors, lining, bus trips, lining, running, lining, security checks, taking a train. We really tried our best, never stopped anywhere, never got lost but missed the gate about 20 minutes. They wrote us new tickets but we had to pay for these over 1000 pounds, because we couldn't explain why we were late - that's what we would have liked to know also.

The time from plane to the gate was only 75 minutes + an extra 15 minutes waiting on the plane gave us only 60 minutes to run the 90 minutes route.

Of course we complained but in vain. First response was: 'you must understand the plane cannot wait for you' (of course, that was not the point) and 'please come back soon'. I was not happy with these answers and wrote back and asked about why we were kept on the plane.

This time we were told to phone to a number. I did. We were told there to write a letter and put all papers and receipts to an envelope, this will sure clear out. After six weeks I phoned back and asked what's happening? Why no response? 'You have been answered already ' (and that date was two weeks before they asked me to write my story to them!) That must beat even the speed of light!

I have wrote again and asked what we did wrong, after trying to reach the gate as best as we could, but I must be now on some black list because I get no answer at all anymore.

And that is the 'best customer relevation' in the world as they keep telling me... I sure don't want to know who's having the worst.

Do I fly again on BA? Well... nooooo.

Jorma Heikkilä

Finland

Don't Drink on BA

Viewpoint: Regarding the Michael Brown incident

Get served liquor then get arrested... limeys?

Sounds set-uppish to me... God bless Andrew Jackson

and Lafitte for whoopin their Brit A_ _es! DONT FLY BA!

EL BRUJO

Global

A total customer service fiasco

The worst possible experience with British Airways that took over 36 hours to get to.... no resolution.

My guest was supposed to fly from Granada Spain to Washington DC. She was not allowed to check in because of incompetence of an agent in the Spanish airport, who thought that her documents were not in order (which we later confirmed where perfectly fine - but the boarding closed by that time).

The itinerary is owned by British Airways, who refused to help with the change because their records show a "no show." But before it even got to the point of getting a non-negotiable refusal from BA, we were not able to even get any response from BA.Â Why? Because they will ONLY speak with the passenger (independent of who paid for the ticket) - they cit British data protection policy, yet make no attempt to make it convieniet for passangers, who do not speak English.

The Spanish office is only open M-F and there's no other way to get support in Spanish.Â They outright refused to have an interpreter, refused to help and deemed the entire itinerary as forefeited (THE ENTIRE ROUND TRIP).

We ended up buying a brand new ticket for $1,000 in addition to the $900 we had already spent. Moral of the story: if you don't speak English, BA will not help. If you have a problem, BA will wash their hands, but will grab your money and run.

BA lost me and my family as a customer. I will tell this story over and over to everyone I know and will use all my power to get BA delisted from available airlines in my company (over 100,000 employees worldwide) from our corporate travel site. Shame on BA!

Aleksey Kulikov

Granada, Spain

Horrific experience from A to Z

On my initial departure date, I experienced 2 cancellations including being sent from one airport to another only to find out that the flight was also cancelled. They booked me on another flight the next day and when I called them the next morning to make sure everything was okay, it turned out that I was not on the flight they had supposedly rebooked me on. Finally, I got on another flight but when I arrived at my final destination in France, my luggage was not there.

I spent the next 10 days in France and Spain without my luggage. I've been back home for over a month now and still don't have my luggage. British Airways has not been responsive regarding compensating me for the lost luggage. It's a complete disgrace. Not only did I leave a day late but I spent my whole vacation without my luggage.

I was expecting British Airways to behave according to its so-called big name but instead found that they are no better than a low-cost shady airline with no customer service. They must be responsible and pay for their mistakes and must not only reimburse me but compensate me for the great trouble it caused, anything less would be absolutely unacceptable!

Arya

Washington DC

Disgusting

I flew BA 13 days ago from Rome to London to Los Angeles. The flight attendants where disgusting to the passengers, rude, obnoxious, no respect. The second flight the TVs were the size of an iPhone, it had very low quality head sets (AF has better ones), low movie selection, very very very disgusting meals, overcooked not enough. No seat selection online so no window seat and then I arrive at LAX and what happens? The luggage is still in **** London. It was delivered 4 days later. Worst airline ever. What am I gonna get on the return flight?

Robert Jhadi

Los Angeles

Customer Service?

My husband and I were Downgraded on a British Airways Flight from Houston to Moscow from Clubworld to Economy on 15th September, 2013 were not compensated, made several reports online on their website got only a case number but no other response. Called the customer service number they gave 10 times on different days have gotten no response.

Joy Godfrey

Over an hour to unload hold luggage

Yesterday I took a flight from Dublin to Heathrow, which got delayed by an hour, which I was told is typical for that particular flight route. This in itself was not a real problem, but what happened on arrival was entirely avoidable.

Apparently as the result of only having four ground staff on duty, hold luggage was not unloaded until over an hour after disembarking, which meant not getting out of arrivals until significantly after midnight. For those who know London, Heathrow's bus and train links do not operate between midnight and 6am, so faced with the choice of a taxi and sleeping in the terminal building I opted for the former. And at £110 that was more expensive than the flight.

I hope BA are not serious in being a standard bearer for the 'British' brand, because stuff like this trashes it.

Remy

British Airways Customer Service Number a waste of Time

Booked a Flight in March to go on a Golf trip in October with about 16 friends. Half of us were going out on the Thursday and the Other half on Friday at 7 a.m. to make the start of the 4 day Golf Tourney.

I was 100% in error and showed up Friday morning forgetting I'd booked for the Thursday 6 months earlier.

I was happy to buy another flight out, was a little discouraged to find out my return flight was cancelled and had to re-book... but was shocked to have to re-pay the extra baggage for my golf clubs. I thought this was poor form.

Insult to injury occured on Monday night when we all got to Lisbon to fly back. Originally I couldn't rebook this return flight as they said it was over-sold. I booked for Tuesday a.m.

As I was at the airport I thought I'd double check and they said there were seats available, but that they would not put me on Stand-by ( so I could fly with my friends and have a ride back from the airport )... but instead was offered to repurchase a new return flight!?

Upon I took it up with customer service... mistakingly thinking they would see that this was all a bit too much and perhaps make some sort of kind gesture.

NO WAY. They only said that however unfortunate the situation was, they stand by their terms and conditions.

I have not flown with them since and have purposely chosen other airlines.

I take it on board that I showed up a day late for the flight. But zero discretion to even let's say carry over my Golf clubs on the outgoing, return flight?

That is no way to retain loyalty of the Great British Public.

Rob Johnston

Heathrow / Lisbon

Worse $5,000+ I Ever Spent On An Airline

Let me preface these comments by saying that I’ve flown 3.25MM air miles since 1975 on just about every airline, everywhere. On a recent quick (2.5 day) trip to London I choose British Air because I could split my class of service going Business Class from Boston to Heathrow overnight to take advantage of the ‘flat bed’ sleeper (given a full day of meetings upon arrival) and returned ‘World Traveller’ because I wasn’t going to sleep on the way back and it was another $1,000 for Business Class.

The Business Class experience was at it’s best pathetic. An offered buffet meal in a cheesy lounge that was near impossible to find prior to the flight. A claustrophobic cubicle of a seat that while flat came in two pieces (one of which sagged and no one could fix it), a virtually non existent flight crew and amenities you would not give out a ten year old’s birthday. But props to the marketing folks for making it all look so inviting and ‘rich’ on the web site. (I guess that’s where my money really went to these chaps who deserve a bonus for ‘spin’.) Then, we landed at the outer edge of the airport (late) only to be bussed around the entire facility and then just disgorged into Terminal 5. Forget any expedited service through customs as the consensus opinion amongst my fellow ‘elite’ travelers was that the ‘Fast (Premium) Lane was actually moving slower than the tourist class queue. In addition they were flying their Boing 777 with not one but two of the Business Class toilets ‘out-of-service.

The British Air Lounge is at best average and the shower rooms tiny to the point that it’s near impossible not to get your belongings wet as the shower leaks throughout the compartment. So that was a $3,300 experience not to be repeated.

The return flight was full (not BA’s fault) the World Traveler experience weak, the meal something that cost under $5, they ran out of one of the entrees prior to getting half way through the cabin (then suggested an economy meal as an option) and the amenities something you wouldn’t hand out at a five year old’s birthday as a favor. The plane (or at least the area all around my seat was full of debris from the last flight (despite the plane sitting at the gate for several hours prior to departure), service was almost invisible (the Flight Attendant’s Union must be fantastic at negotiating work rules as there is the absence of flexibility in their ability to respond to anything ad hoc); no one ever responded to the call button/light, they could not get the cabin or seat lights off making watching anything on the tiny screen almost impossible and the toilet was dirty, out of some products and leaking half way across the Atlantic and it took 10 minutes to get a tiny can of Diet Coke (not on the cart). All for a mere $2,000.

Call me jaded or cranky or nuts but someone will not take customers for granted like this and win my business in the future? Or I’ll spend $50 on gourmet food that I take on board, have a chauffer drive me to the airport, reserve a room at a Heathrow hotel so I can change and be a few thousand dollars ahead.

JohnL

USA

Cancelled flight

So on June 18th I had a flight from Newcastle International Airport to Heathrow, then onwards to Philadelphia. The Philadelphia flight was supposed to depart Heathrow at 17:20pm. At about 16:30pm I was informed that I needed to contact the airline, which I did and was promptly told by a BA representative that all passengers who were meant to be on the flight had to collect their luggage, leave Heathrow, then re-check in and MAYBE they would have another flight for us as the one scheduled to leave had a technical fault.

So after going through UK customs and checking back into Heathrow, they eventually put me on a flight to JFK that arrived in the USA at 9:30pm, we then had to make our own way down to Philadelphia which is two states over and about a 2 and a half - 3 hour drive, not arriving in Philadelphia until well after midnight. Four hours after we were meant to land.

Adam

NEVER AGAIN!!!!

I am sitting at Nice airport starving hungry and dying of thirst. My flight was canceled yesterday due to the air strike. That I can understand is not BA's fault. But I was told this mroning to make my way to the airport as my flight was scheduled for 13.00. But it is now 20.30 and I am still here. I have been refused food and drink at the BA desk, despite the fact that this is a clause of BA's own "Right to Care" statement, as shown on ther website. I have no money as I used the last of it to pay for my room for an extra night due to the flight cancellation.

BLOODY DISGRACEFUL!!!!

Linda Ormes

NICE via London

10 Days to Rebooking

I booked round trip tickets to me and my minor children from USA to India. I was not aware of that I need a transit visa to travel until the check in time.

Airport BA crew told to me about this and gave 10 business days to rebook. My husband called from the airport and informed them about this. After coming home we applied transit visa immediately. The process takes more than 10 business days. We called BA and told them but they don't care about the processing time and told 10 days including weekends and holidays we have to rebook otherwise itinerary will be void. They counted 9 days only. I was trying to tell there is a counting mistake she was not ready to listen and was yelling at me. She told me that she has 17 years experience, she know how to do that.

We asked them to give some more time because visa processing time takes more than that and we can't expect that on certain time. In their calculation I am left with 2 days to re-book with penalty and different fare. We are stressed out, I am a busy mom, my husband is a full time employee and part time student.

Could you please tell me how I can extend my rebooking time without penalty. Appreciate your help.

Sorry, I have no idea how to get BA to act responsibly. That's why I started this website. - Neil

Geetu

Peoria, Il

Never Again

After years of being a loyal customer of BA and accruing over 500k (now) Avios points over the years AND 2 voucher companions in the last 18 months, I decided its about time I made the most of these 'rewards'.

Having been looking for reward flights for months and having flexible dates I found 2...there are 4 of us. I complained to BA on many occasions and today, they still tell me that they 'understand and thank you for my letter' (but pi** off)!

I for one will not be flying with them ever again.

RedScopeAlpha

Aerotoxic

Thursday, 31 January 2013 01:03

Death of BA Pilot Richard Westgate instructed his lawyers to sue BA for alleged health and safety breaches.

BA Pilot Karen Lysakowska also wrote to BA threatening to take legal action over ongoing air contamination incidents.

Karen Lysakowska. Karen we spoke many times on the phone, we know what occured to us, many many passengers do not.

Len Lawrence. His storey was one of costly legal battles to prove that his brain injury was due to chemical exposure and that he was not mentally unfit. What emerged was a story of incompetence by the medical profession, who lacks knowledge of the symptoms following exposure to neurotoxins and the unfairness of the legal profession in not allowing him to see data concerning his own personal records in their reluctance to take those culpable.

Leonard Lawrence

Leonard Lawrence was born in the United Kingdom in 1955 close to London Heathrow Airport. At the age of eighteen he joined the Royal Navy leaving with an exemplary discharge. He gained his Private Pilot’s Licence in 1985 and later became a civilian flying instructor. He flew as a professional pilot form 1989 to 2004 the British Aerospace HS125 a twin-engined mid-size corporate jet, now marketed as the Hawker 800, the British Aerospace BAe146 and the Boeing 757/767

In 1997 he began to experience neurological health problems including short term memory difficulties unaware that his former employer British Aerospace had signed a Secret Settlement Agreement regarding aircraftfumes. In 2007 the Australian Senate located the Secret Settlement Agreement made on the 3 September 1993. The existence of this Secret Settlement Agreement had been denied to Lord Tyler’s House of Lord Committee and the Australian Senate inquiry

After being medically grounded by the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority in 2004, during the period 2004 to 2006, Leonard Lawrence was kept under the jurisdiction of the Official Solicitor of the Senior Courts and District Judges at Slough County Court. A report by the United Kingdom Law Society, Solicitors Regulatory Authority, concluded “Issues raised by Mr. Lawrence are significant and should be investigated and responded to on the basis that they indicate areas in which the legal system appears to have failed to sufficiently protect an extremely vulnerable adult”

Whilst Leonard Lawrence was being held by Slough County Court and the Official Solicitor the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) held the conference detailed below, a link can be found on the Aerotoxic website.

Proceedings of the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) Air Safety and Cabin Air Quality International Aero Industry Conference held at Imperial College, London, 20-21 April 2005.

The Earth Needs Rebels Radio Show

United Kingdom Hospital Medical Director

Report Leonard Lawrence

Mr Lawrence has been heavily exposed to organophosphates. He was medicated to the extent that he lost mental capacity. During the period the Official Solicitor of the Supreme Court acted as his Guardian ad Litem three Court of Protection medical certificates (CP3’s) had been obtained but not registered with the Court of Protection. He was, therefore, for nearly 18 months regarded as a mentally ill patient without access to the Court of Protection. During this time considerable amounts of his assets went missing.

United Kingdom Consultant Haematologist

Dear Mr Lawrence I am sorry that we will not be able to accept you as a donor. This is because of your history of organophosphate poisoning that has left you with on-going nervous system problems.

United Kingdom Professor and Consultant Immunologist

Clearly Mr Lawrence has been through a great deal because of his organophosphate poisoning and related matters.

Professor Abou-Donia Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology and of Neurobiology

(Testing paid for by the British Airline Pilots Association)

Tau and MBP suggest the presence of moderate brain injury. Consistent with chemical-induced nervous system injury.

Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Malcolm Hooper

Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 11 (209-215)

In the Lawrence case there appears to be sound grounds for legal action and significant compensation claims for mistreatment and false diagnoses and an appalling failure of the duty of care

Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry 11 (216-220)

Len Lawrence. His storey was one of costly legal battles to prove that his brain injury was due to chemical exposure and that he was not mentally unfit. What emerged was a story of incompetence by the medical profession, who lacks knowledge of the symptoms following exposure to neurotoxins and the unfairness of the legal profession in not allowing him to see data concerning his own personal records in their reluctance to take those culpable.

Dear Len, thank you for keeping me updated and of new matters arising concerning Ops. My wish is that sooner rather than later someone is GOING TO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. NEVER GIVE IN, but stand resolute and strong in bringing down these corrupt and deceitful persons who were responsible for all your hurt and pain too. Rest assured I am alongside you in exposing this unlawful and criminal activity.

The Aerotoxic Association:

Provides support for sufferers of Aerotoxic Syndrome and their carers. The main aim of the Association is to offer previously-unavailable, targeted support to individuals, which some other organisations have found ‘inconvenient’ to offer. A well-established web site www.aerotoxic.org has been available since 2007. Numerous enquiries are received from aircrew and passengers who have developed serious ill health after flying but often spend many years having routine medical tests which are not specific enough to detect the invisible damage from breathing neurotoxic oil fumes. The illness can be experienced on a single flight.. The victims and neurological specialists, most of whom are unfamiliar with the condition, often fail to understand the cause of the ill health which often leads to serious misdiagnoses and mistreatments. Recently, several high profile court cases have commenced in the US, which has brought about a renewed interest in the issue.

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